Thinking games

Ready to move beyond "I Spy", I was very excited to read this on Park Slope Parents (an email group and local list serve):


"My kids are a little younger (3 and 5) and we like these thinking car games, geared to the younger set:

1) I'm thinking of something and it has... [this is a twist on 20 questions, but for smaller kids who aren't quire up to the task of generating lots of questions - provide three+ descriptives to help the child guess ("Whiskers, paws and meows"). Make it easier or harder based on age.]

2) Rhyming roots song... [Credit for this goes to my mom, a first grade teacher. Teach rhyming roots with a song, you do the first few, and then the kids figure it out and chime in to spell the word. For early phonics. "I can spell CAT.... C-A-T. I can spell BAT... B-A-T. And on and on. Kids will start to add their own first consonant to make their own words. Every once in a while, my Mom would end that root series with the phrase: "Isn't it incredible! (sung in opera voice), and that was sort of a verbal high five, before switching roots. Corny but kids LOVE it.

3) Rhyming guessing game: "I'm thinking of something that is white and cold and it rhymes with glow."

4) True or False: make statements that are either silly or true and have the children answer - "True or false: Whales like to eat apple pie?"

5)Mommy doesn't like.....: This is a quirky game that my kids made up that is a road trip hit in our family. I like it because it invites the kids to think about others. In the car, we go in turns. The person speaking has to think of a person and then think of something that other person really likes (for me it is always latte), and then they say: "Mommy doesn't like LATTES!" Of course I do like Lattes, so we all say "no-no-no-no-no!" and laugh. (Each time we say the opposite of the truth, then we say "no" a lot in silly voices, then we laugh.) The first round is easy, but after that, it is interesting to see how children perceive the preferences of others in the family, and also how well they manage the trick of reversing it...which they find hilarious.

Happy travels everyone!

Jill (mom to 2 good road-trippers)"