Fun and games

Some of the children's favorite games revolve around cooperation and a bit of friendly competition: Children Around the World, where when you land on a space that someone else is occupying, you share a token from your culture; the Birds of the National Parks game, which can be played as a memory game, or by collecting pairs as in a card game, or just matching the bird cards up to the poster and learning about them in that way. Even the two year olds enjoy it! They like to play 'Hiss', or as we call it, 'the snake game' where they match up (kind of like dominoes) two-toned pieces of snakes to make a complete one. It's a simple game, easy enough for two year olds to play. It teaches them turn-taking, colors, and counting. We also have story baskets, with a board book and little figures of animals and/or people or stuffed animals that help tell the story. It makes the story much more concrete for the little ones. They can hold and play with one of the figures while we finish telling the story, and that makes them want to revisit it over and over; it also expands the age range of interest. Right now we're working with some of the Eric Carle books in our story baskets, along with Mouse Paint!