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Strollerderby
Two of the coolest toys on the planet and the two dreaded opponents of parent’s feet come late night stumble to the bathroom have joined forces.
LEGO is going to make a board game. We’re expecting eensy weensy pieces – preferably brick shaped.
Better for our feet Continue reading »
It’s a thrilling thing to catch a ball while in the stands of a baseball game. Fans jump, jostle and scrabble to grab a souvenir that will most likely be cherished and keep forever. But one Phillies fan wasn’t so lucky.
After outfielder Jason Werth hit a ball into the upper part of the bleachers, an excited Phillies dad caught the ball, rejoiced with his seatmates and then shared the moment with his young daughter. He handed the ball to her and what did she do? She promptly threw it right back onto the field.
You can check out Dad’s reaction in the adorable video here: Continue reading »
This is usually how hide and seek goes in my house, as my kid likes to hide in the same place (in the bed) everytime. Actually, it’s not really Hide and Seek at all but me pretending to seek, then pretending to get tired and taking a nap on the bed (aka my daughter) while the bed giggles and I continually tell the bed to hush up.
Anywho, these kids have mastered speed Hide and Seek. The Key? No furniture.
The “amazing” video after the jump.
Today on 
Most kids play house. Pirates. Unemployed mortgage broker (hey, you go with what you know). But a couple of kids in Germany were entirely more hip to the world.
Two little boys were playing nuclear power station when they had to go home for dinner. Their abandoned “power station” prompted a scare that closed down their entire town. Continue reading »
A Pennsylvania two-year-old wasn’t just good at hide-and-seek. She was “call the cops to find the kid” good.
A toddler playing the game with her siblings went missing, and her frantic parents called the cops when they could find her. Continue reading »
Who says you have to be a caterer or a print-shop to make in-kind donations? Funagain, a board game retailer, gives away—what else?—board games, and a few $100 cash grants to be used for board games, to more than a dozen U.S. military servicemembers, schools, and libraries per month, based on a brief e-mailed essay about how potential recipients would use the games.
Although this is a small program in the grand scheme of philanthropy, and a brilliant PR move, I can’t help but be charmed. In a time when computer time seems to be the be-all-end-all of children’s “enrichment” planning (except when we’re desperately trying to get them away from a screen and moving around), it’s nice to hear about places that want to encourage the social interaction and skills that come with good old board games—following rules, taking turns, dealing with the frustration of random chance, developing strategic thinking, etc.
Yes, clearly I have some fond memories of family board games and card games. On the other hand, I’ve recently spent a lot of time playing Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders with my daughter and wow they are boring. It’s funny how in hindsight these games I remember playing are so clearly designed to introduce the concept of game playing itself and not much more. Our rounds of War were doing an OK job of that, but three-year-olds deserve diversity too, I suppose. Time to arrange for some board game playdates.
I also have to note that grants of board games would be less necessary—or go farther—if the basic message of the sadly in-hibernation CheapAss Games were taken to heart: The only unique parts of most games are the board, the cards, and the instructions. Play pieces, timers, pencils, pads of paper, dice, and money (a pile of loose change will do) can be interchangable, and it’s rather silly to keep shelling out for them over and over. If we all had one set of gaming paraphernalia (we use play pieces from a Monopoly game), getting new games could be a lot cheaper, a lot easier to store, and a lot less wasteful.
Unfortunately, the taste of CheapAss Games’ designers tended toward complex rules and not so young-child friendly themes, and of course for intellectual property reasons they couldn’t just make the pared down versions of the classic games. So I’m stuck, for now, with the full-sized Candy Land, complete with mostly empty box and four cheap plastic gingerbread people to move around, until I have kids ready to handle Unexploded Cow.
Photo CC NathanReed, via Flickr.
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