Coin Capture is a fun game that can be played on a rainy day with easy to find household materials. It also gives the players a chance to do some simple math and can be played over and over again. It’s fun for adults and kids to play together.
Ages: 6-adult
Players: 2
Object of the game
Players try to push their coins into their Score Zone. Players earn points based on the value of the coins from their team that land in their Score Zone. The player with the most points wins!
I love to sneak learning into all parts of life. I’m a curious person, I can’t help it! My son asked if we could go on one vacation without learning things, and I answered with a maniacal laugh and a deep, sonorous NO. In this family, we love to learn!! And we talk about what we learn!!
Seriously, learning does not have to be boring. Learning can be fun if you do it the right way. And the right way is to make it into a game.
On car trips, when our kids were very little, we played rhyming games. They are all now school age so we will often play ‘Spelling Bee’ and give our kids funny words to spell at their grade level. We also keep a small but mighty trivia book tucked in a seat pocket and take turns passing it around and answering questions.
But let’s say you’re not on vacation and want some fun learning games for young kids. My first recommendation is BINGO. Yes, the classic game of Bingo is perfect to start playing with young kids (and older kids).
Learning Numbers
When my oldest started kindergarten, I couldn’t wait to volunteer and help out. So as we neared Halloween, his wonderfully patient and experienced teacher invited me in to play a game with the class. I brought in our Bingo game set, complete with rolling ball and playing cards and red plastic markers. I started calling out letters and numbers and my son (and maybe a few other students) marked their cards. But most of the kids didn’t know what I meant when I called out double-digit numbers.
I felt embarrassed, but I also knew these kids could learn these numbers and that a game like Bingo was the perfect way to help them. We had been playing Bingo with our kids for a long time. If I hadn’t been so flustered, I could have written the numbers on the board and helping the kids look at their cards and match them up. I also could have done peer teaching and paired kids up.
Learning Words
It’s really important that kids learn their numbers, but it’s also important that they master our language and learn the parts of speech. Having a strong and varied vocabulary increases our ability to explain ourselves and understand others, to express complex thoughts and build connections between concepts and create new ideas. And that’s where Mad Libs comes in.
Yes, Mad Libs. That old school paper book (not an e-device) that asks players to write in verbs, adjectives and nouns. The one where you couldn’t resist writing “butt” and “poop” at least a few times. It works.
My friend took a Mad Libs story into her son’s fourth grade class as a part of a holiday party and she was surprised how few kids could provide suggestions for the parts of speech. Standards in third grade already covered adjectives, adverbs and proper nouns! By fourth grade, students should be able to provide appropriate suggestions for those parts of speech. But even if they struggle, Mad Libs is a fun, non-academic way to encourage them to think about what kind of word is both grammatically logical but also hilariously out of place.
The Word Gap
Thinking about Mad Libs brings me back to the Word Gap. Simply put, kids from low income families are hearing and learning fewer words than kids from high income families. By age 3, kids from low income families are hearing 30 million fewer words. 30 million. And the discrepancy only increases as the kids age. It impacts these kids in terms of school success, which in turn impacts their chances of continuing education, job readiness, and the cycle of poverty.
A lack of words? It’s totally unfair.
It seems so bitterly unjust to me, someone who loves to talk and learn, that these children are already behind due to a lack of words. I try never to talk ‘down’ to children (or adults). But lots of people aren’t aware of this and say they aren’t sure what to say to kids. And sometimes when I take my children’s writing to more general critique groups, I get comments that my vocabulary is too high and I need to ‘dumb it down’ or ‘make it more kid friendly.’
But now you and I know being kid friendly means offering them more words, not less.
There are some amazing ideas out there. People are working to increase the number of words kids see, hear, read, learn and say. I’d love to contribute in some way to reduce the Word Gap. I’m going to keep thinking about it and I’m going to ask my kids what they think would work.
Writers in Pittsburgh are going to be busy this fall. There are tons of events for writers in this city! There are new books releases, new bookstores opening, at least two conferences with agents, and of course NaNoWriMo 2016!
Book Release
Let’s start with an announcement that Kate Dopirak‘s first book You’re My Boo hit shelves this week. This book is perfect for parents of little ones who keep it interesting! Writers in Pittsburgh could take a lesson from the amazing book launch parties Kate put together.
Upcoming Events
Kate is one of the coordinators for the annual Western PA SCBWI Conference happening November 11-12 at the Hyatt Regency Pittsburgh International Airport. There are still spaces, so register now. I’ve attended this conference for several years and even won recognition as a’Promising Writer’ last year. This conference is such a boost for writers in Pittsburgh who create for children and offers excellent programming for illustrators, too.
If you aren’t writing for children or miss the registration deadline for the SCBWI conference, then sign up for the Pitch.Publish. Promote. Conference happening at Hotel Monaco also on November 12. I’m bummed that this conference is the same day as the SCBWI conference. If you attend, I’d love to hear feedback.
Bookstore Opening
Writers in Pittsburgh stay connected with the literary scene in Pittsburgh by following the news from Littsburgh. Check out their review of the new Nine Stories Bookstore. I’m excited to visit because they love science fiction and fantasy. (I say science fiction not ‘sci-fi’ ever since Jane Yolen told me science fiction writers loath the phrase ‘sci-fi.’)
Spooky Short Story
Halloween is closing in and writers in Pittsburgh are hopefully working on their ghost stories. I know I’ve got two that need some tweaking. If you prefer to read a seasonal story instead of write one, check out Extractions by Pittsburgh writer and blogger Melissa M. Firman.
Things are still going great at our Little Free Library. Check out these thank you notes:
I never go anywhere without learning something. So while we were in New York City for three days, I crammed a lot of new information into my brain. Here are six things I learned in New York City that I didn’t know before this visit.
Polynesian sailors made star charts out of sticks and shells to guide them as they traveled the seas at night.
Meteorites contain the oldest parts of our universe.
Animals like dugongs and manatees are called Sirenians.
Hooved animals are called Ungulates. Whales are ungulates. Yes, they don’t have hooves but evolutionary evidence shows they had ancestors with hooves.
Litter causes fires, and subsequent delays, in the New York City subway.
The oldest wood in trees is deep inside the trunk and is called the heartwood. Trees grow wider by producing new cells closer to the outside bark.
I learned some other less interesting things, like random puddles on the sidewalk are most likely dog pee, and lunch is really expensive. I almost witnessed a fight on the subway, and didn’t see any celebrities that I recognized. I was reminded that Sambuca tastes like licorice and that driving in New York City is a brush with death. It was a great trip.
We finally have a Little Free Library in Tyler Park! About a year ago, I was in Minneapolis, MN, for a volunteer conference. While I was there, roaming around the very flat city, I walked by my very first Little Free Library. I had heard of these delightful book boxes, but never seen one.
As you can guess, I was incredibly inspired by the idea of sharing books with the community. I promised myself then and there I’d get one in our park. And it happened. Sure, it took over a year, but I never said I’d do it fast.
The Dream
First, I mentioned the idea to my neighbor on the board of our neighborhood association. Then I emailed the info to the board. After they approved the idea, they got approval from the township to install it in the park. Then I selected the design and ordered the LFL. It arrived in early June…and sat on my back deck for several months. I was sad about that, but there wasn’t much I could do. I’m not skilled with digging holes and pouring cement and I did not want this to be installed poorly.
I dreamed of the day the LFL would be ready. My husband and I visited the park often and debated where the best place would be to put it. We settled on a spot near the playground and the driveway. I often looked across the park and pictured it. But every time I tried to line up installation, scheduling or weather got in the way.
So at the bus stop one morning, I mentioned my dilemma to some other families, and a dad volunteered to help me out. And that Friday, we met at the park and dug in!
Installation
We had a little helper who loved to measure.
While the LFL shipped with basic installation instructions, the steps were a lot more involved than I could implement at the park. We didn’t have electricity for sawing wood. So I purchased the installation materials based on a useful blog post I discovered at Hugs and Kisses and Snot. Their idea was genius in my opinion. All we needed was two mail box posts, cement and screws. I did a very good job holding the mailbox posts in place.
It was so great learning tips and tricks from my very skilled neighbor. After we leveled the posts, I assumed we’d have to mix the cement in the bucket, but he pointed out it was just as easy to mix it right in the ground. That smoke is like magic!!
We let the cement set for a day. Bright and early Saturday morning my neighbor secured the LFL onto to the posts with a kind of construction glue and screws. Then the kids, my husband and I hustled over there with our big box of books and loaded it up.
Little Free Library Opening Day
We didn’t have a huge Opening Day celebration. But the Little Free Library worked like a charm. My kids saw books that looked interested, grabbed them out of the LFL, and cracked them open. Perfect!It was very hard and very easy to make this dream come true. The Little Free Library is open in Tyler Park. I’ve checked on it every day since it opened. (Yes, I’m over eager) It’s exciting to see that people have taken books and left new ones! We even got a thank you note! It’s pretty thrilling.
It’s funny, when I saw that Little Free Library in Minneapolis, I didn’t even open it. I remember I gazed at it longingly, but didn’t open the door or take out a book. I could have, of course, because the books in Little Free Libraries are available for anyone. But I realize now I thought those books were only for Minnesotans. So I declare now, if you visit Tyler Park from you are allowed to take books from our Little Free Library!
Earlier this summer, I entered the WOW! Spring Flash Fiction Contest with my story “Sargassum.” In late July, the same day I learned about my Pen Parentis fellowship, I received an email from WOW! letting me know I was a Finalist! I was thrilled. The panel of first round judges loved the story. But I still had to wait and see what the guest judge thought of my story.
A few weeks later I learned I was in the top ten! Again a moment of delight. And then the winners were announced and I was so proud to be chosen a Runner-Up in the contest.
I can’t thank the team at WOW! enough. Writing fiction is hard. But the team supports writers with useful information and a chance to get their stories out there and get the encouragement to keep going. Just read the note they send with my Amazon gift card:
I have participated in this contest several times and always find the critiques to be useful. If you are a fiction writer who enjoys writing flash, send in your story!
Summer writing is different from school year writing for me.
This summer, it’s been hard to find time to sit down and write. For me, once I get in my chair, I tend not to get out again. I get sucked in, absorbed, and I neglect other things like eating, moving and people.
That kind of behavior doesn’t work really well when you have kids home with you. They don’t want to be ignored for eight hours. And I have trouble focusing on long, big projects like novel revision in short sections. I need time to deep dive. So this summer it’s been a focus on pitching to magazines, short and quippy essays for parenting websites, and interview based articles for e-zines.
My schedule is all over the place, too. I haven’t used writing prompts this summer, but I wish I had. I have an app on my phone called Prompts and I used to receive emails from Sarah Selecky every day with a writing prompt. (I don’t think she offers these anymore!) While I didn’t love all of them, quite a few sparked some fun stories. I’d like to use daily writing prompts again to inspire some journaling and brainstorming, but ideas really aren’t my problem. It’s making time and finding a place.
Writing prompts don’t require a long time commitment, but they do require a place to sit down and write or type, and that’s the other thing I’ve lost this summer. A place. Our house has been under renovation and my office, where I write, has been a kitchen, a storage place, and is now a clump of furniture piled in the middle of the room. Other places in the house have been overtaken by this project and I don’t have a room of my own to get into the headspace of my characters.
I know, I know – if I want to write, make the time and the place to write. But I didn’t stop writing, I just changed my kind of writing.
I’ve also skipped my critique groups altogether this summer. While I love the act of critique and find it valuable in so many ways, it can also be filled with lots of drama. It’s good to take a break from things once in awhile.
Things are slowly changing back. And I have lots of writing on my to-do list.
I wanted to be a writer before I was a mom, and after I had kids I still wanted to be a writer. I think writing influences me as a mom, and being a mom influences me as a writer. That’s why I’m so proud to have been chosen the Pen Parentis Fellow for 2016-2017.
I still laugh when I read this part:
…she’s able to create surreal, clean, sharp, hilarious, strange, moving, wonderful fiction, despite the demands of her three kids!
I’ll take hilarious and strange. And yes, sometimes it’s hard to believe I get stuff done with kids around.
I’m still in awe about this whole thing. I’ve entered their fellowship contest before and not won. I’ve entered lots of writing contests actually, and I am no stranger to rejection. But I’m also learning what it feels like to be accepted! It doesn’t seem that long ago that Highlights for Children bought my submissions for the first time. That was in the fall of 2015. And I still remember the thrill when I learned FamilyFun wanted to buy my essay on helping grumpy kids, all the way back in 2012.
But this award is something else entirely. It’s only awarded to writing parents, and that’s why it feels so special. If you read my bio, you’ll see I’m a writing mom on the run. That first sentence describes some of the major parts of my identity and how they influence me.
And the story I submitted is a little different from these other pieces, too. When I submit to magazines, I try very hard to imagine what the readers want and what the editors want. But this story was something I wanted to write purely for the joy of writing. While I am proud of every piece of writing that’s been published, this one wasn’t sent in for commercial purposes. It was a bit of pure fiction I wrote for the sole reason that I wanted to write it.
Big parts of this award still haven’t sunk in with me. For instance, my story will appear in Brain,Child magazine, a publication I love and have been submitting to for years. Another achievement that feels pretty amazing.
Also, I get to go to NYC and read my story out loud, in a literary salon, with other writers. And it’s the day before my birthday. It feels like a dream.
My kids are of course, thrilled. They know how hard it is to get a rejection. And they know how amazing it feels to get an acceptance or win an award. And they take some credit and remind me I couldn’t do this without them.
And when they are done hugging me in comfort or in celebration, they know just how to keep it real and remind me I promised to find their missing Pokemon cards. Or that I have to make their brother share the blue lightsaber, or that I forgot again they won’t eat cooked spinach at dinner. Or that they can’t remember if the clothes on their floor or clean or dirty so that’s why everything went back into the laundry, or that it actually isn’t time for bed yet because it’s still light outside.
It’s ok, though, because I’d rather do this with them.
All school year I help my young kids log books. Our school has a program called Ross Reads and as the kids read books and pass quizzes online hosted by Scholastic, my kids earn prizes. They get colored rubber bracelets that signify their total of books read. They earn coupons for yogurt and local attractions. My kindergartener even earned tickets to a Washington Wild Things baseball game this year!!
And the reading doesn’t stop in summer. There are dozens of programs out there encouraging kids to read for rewards. At the library. At Half-Price Books. All summer I’m supposed to help them log books. When do I get a chance to earn rewards for reading??
Now.
Bookmarks Up!
Finally, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh heard my woeful cry and offered a program for adults to earn prizes for reading. Their Summer Reading Log for 2016 is all online. That is perfect because it’s time consuming to drive across town to turn in a paper log. And I love that I am entered to win prizes for something I totally rock at doing: READING.
The program even offers suggestions for books I might like, but I don’t really need that aspect because my “To-Read” list on Goodreads is already a mile long and doesn’t even include the books that are stacked on my nightstand waiting to be read. I’ll read them all, I promise!
I really felt this program was designed just for me, but it turns out Carnegie Library wanted it to be easy for the whole city to read books and log their reading for rewards, so they challenged Pittsburghers to read 90,000 books before August 31, 2016. And we did it. I helped in my small way.
Have you ever fallen in love with a book, a movie, a song? Have you ever felt like it spoke to your soul, or resonated with you so much, you wanted to read more or listen to more by the same artist or author? And then you go and do some research on the author or artist and discover, with massive crushing disappointment, that they are not the person you expected them to be. In fact, you disagree with the writer, very, very, very much.
This has happened to me, and it’s happened more than once. And when it happens I then wonder, “Can I still enjoy the things this person has created, the stories this writer has written, even if I don’t respect their opinions, their perspective, their views on life?”
This happened to me with a singer/songwriter whose music I like, Loretta Lynn, and an author whose books I loved, Orson Scott Card.
Singers
I’m not crazy passionate about Loretta Lynn, but her story is unique and inspiring. Her voice is so unique and beautiful. Truthfully, besides Coal Miner’s Daughter and Sloe Gin Fizz, I don’t know many of her songs. But I would expect to enjoy her music. Until I found out she endorsed Donald Trump. Can I listen to her music and enjoy it anymore?
Authors
Orson Scott Card’s books were a staple of my reading in my teens and early twenties. I loved Ender’s Game and especially The Worthing Saga. I knew he was a Mormon, but I knew lots of Mormons and got along great with them. I did my undergraduate historical research on Mormons traveling to the American West. And I was so proud that one of my first fiction awards came from Leading Edge magazine, a literary journal where his writing appeared. But when I found out he was an open bigot, I couldn’t bring myself to pick up his books anymore.
I’m all for people having their own opinions. I’m all for writers and singers and artists to explore and present opinions that aren’t their own. Not every character in my stories is a version of me. Sometimes they are versions of the worst parts of me, or they are versions of a person I’d never want to be.
But what do you do when you find out a writer or artist who creates works you enjoy holds opinions or beliefs that you could never, ever agree with or understand? Can you still enjoy the products of their creativity? Can you separate the artist from his or her work?
Update…
[Sept 2016] I just learned, to my sorry, that Roald Dahl was an open anti-Semite. A bitter disappointment to learn that someone who told such wonderfully, imaginative stories also claimed “Hitler didn’t pick on them for no reason.” So sad and disgusting.
Is it possible for me, like Ender, to learn to understand my enemy, even love them, through their works?
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