Squared Up

Holly got another game for her birthday that has been great fun to play with, Squared Up. We had originally come upon this game at the Seattle Pacific Science Center one visit, she and I played it for a long time. Then we stumbled upon it again at a specialty toy store in which she expressed she'd like to own this game. So, for her birthday I ordered up a copy - it is a fun game!

The goal of this game is to shake the little cube tray and create a pattern (each player has their own). Then you are to recreate that patter as fast as you can by sliding the pieces around... which can be really tough! You are actually using the center nine cubes as your patter, which you see when you shut the little screen to share your finished game. This game is wonderfully challenging, colorful, fun, fast moving and keeps her interest... all while building some logic skills. I highly recommend it!

Q-Bitz Game

I try to incorporate a lot of games into our learning, to spice things up and honestly -- you can learn a lot from games! We own a ton of games, they are used well in this house and I am always on the look out for something a little bit different.

This year for Holly's birthday she got a couple of new games. Q-Bitz is one of her new games that we have already spend a good period of time enjoying. This is a great puzzle game that works on some logic skills, pattern recognition, memory skills and general math.

The game has four little wooden boards with 16 different patterned dice. You flip a card with a pattern on it and race to see who can complete the pattern first (or enjoy alone). Then you can spice it up a bit with rolling your dice to complete the pattern or using your memory to complete the pattern. It is challenging and fun - a hit for us for sure!

If you are enjoy games or are a fellow home schooling family or instructor this would make a great addition to your learning!!!

Leprechaun Trap

Last year was Holly's first year making a leprechaun trap. She was bummed it did not work so she tried a completely different trap this year. This year she came up with several designs over a couple day period, discussed them with Bryan, she went over the different supplies we had on hand and came up with her new leprechaun trap for this year. I think she might have been inspired by Swiss Family Robinson's tiger trap for the pirates as her design is very similar in theory.

This year she used a tissue box that she covered in green paper decorated with various St. Patrick's Day designs. Then she added a rainbow in which the 'gold' to attract a leprechaun would be placed under. Over the opening of the tissue box she wanted to create a nest of rainbow paper to hide the hole. Below the rainbow nest was a sea of tape that was placed there to 'stick' the leprechaun when he fell in. Then he could not escape.

Well, what happened is - when the leprechaun fell through all the rainbow paper stuck to the tape... making it not sticky. He took the gold, left a treat and took off. So sneaky!!! What impressed me about this part is that Holly immediately figured out the flaw of her trap - the paper ruined the sticky tape. She already commented that next year she'll have to come up with something better.

While this is a fun project, she really enjoyed it once again. She worked her little brain to design something from the supplies we had on hand, discussed with us how a trap might or might not work, reasoned out why and had to be very creative! I am excited to see what her design will be for next year.