Saturday, July 29, 2006

Daughter the Younger's requests

In my last entry I mentioned that Daughter the Younger was starting to really play games. She has come along in leaps and bounds since then. A week later I posted a GeekList Games that Daughter the Younger plays. I mean *really* plays as opposed to *plays with*, destroys or eats. because she was upto four games. This week Melissa came down with the flu so has spent most of the time cooped up in the bedroom. One of the things that has entertained Daughter the Younger has been games. She has been demanding quite a few including ones she should have no idea how to play.

Dominos has been played a lot this week, she doesn't mind that our set is missing two pieces. She has gotten over her dislike of blanks and the majority of our games are proper games. Every now and again we just build farms. One she had spread the dominos over three rooms and in our first hunt we managed to find all but four pieces. I told her that we were not going to play any more games until we found all of the Dominos. About half an hour later she found the last piece and gave it to me and announced "We can play games now". Of course, I then had to sit down and play a few games with her :-)

Piggy-back is still a big favourite. I have tried to convince her that we should only have two piggies each, but she will have none of that, three is the number.

There are a few other games that she has been consistently been asking for all week, I am not entirely sure why these are her picks, but anyway here are the top three requested games from our three year old daughter.

The game with lellow and horsies. Take a guess at what you think that might be and then click on the link and see if you were correct. I couldn't figure it out at first until she pointed at the box. The first time we opened it up she selected a set of pieces and starting putting them on the board. She then helped herself to a bunch of cards and laid them down in front of her as if she was playing a route. I didn't actually bother to check to see if her cards made a valid route :-) We only got this game a week and half ago, I figure she saw Melissa and I playing it a few times, so she wanted to get in on the action. Did you guess Thurn und Taxis?

YINSH. I figured she must have been watching Daughter the Elder and I play this a couple of times over the last week or so. I opened it up and she said "I will be white, you will be black" and took the baggie of white rings and opened it up and started placing the white rings on the board. She also knew that when you moved you placed a counter of your colour face up inside the ring and then "jumped" the ring to another spot. Another thing she had observed was that to win you had to take three of your rings off the playing area and put them in the scoring spots. The only things she hasn't actually picked up are the movement rules of the rings, flipping counters and knowing that once you get five in a row you take them and one of your rings off the board. You really do forget just how observant little children are.

Ingenious aka "the blue game with white writing". I think she might have seen this played face to face once or twice, but she has watched Melissa play it a lot on BSW. When I opened the box and set up the board, she demanded both the scoring tracks and the tile holders. I managed to convince her that we didn't need the scoring tracks. We have played it a couple of times now and I would say 90% of her moves are legitimate in that they would score decent points. Towards the end game, she either gets a little bored or just wants to place pieces in a bit more haphazard fashion. If I let her draw her own replacement tiles from the bag I do have to remind her that she is not meant to look, one time yesterday she announced "I am going to get myself a good one" as she drew herself a double red. She also knew that the tile holders stacked together, which I thought was quite amazing since I am sure she had only seen it out of the box at most twice.

Children definitely are a constant source of amazement.

Hmmm Meeples taste like...

4 comments:

Gerald McD said...

Young children are amazingly observant. When our grandson was very young, he would stand by the table or sit on someone's lap while we played games. Soon, he asked a question now and then, never asking the same question twice. Before long, he was making suggestions for plays, and then asking to play with us. The rest is history. Now, we have to tell him to quit helping us by pointing out better moves than we made. And even when he does that, he frequently beats us.

It is really neat to hear how Daughter the Younger is progressing. Before long, you will have difficulty keeping up with her gaming skills. I'm really excited for you and Melissa. (Hope Melissa is feeling better.)

Friendless said...

Yes, I guessed Thurn & Taxis, because I am always lellow! Great minds think alike.

Mischa said...

How old is Daughter the Younger at this point in time?

Fraser said...

Daughter the Younger will be 3 1/2 in about six weeks.