When our son got at least a couple of board games for Christmas last year, I thought they were to be left in the corner of his room for a few more years. That is until our five year old himself showed me the label from the box that the Monopoly Jr. is for the 5 year old and up.
It turns out I underestimated him. Our son’s being restless and playful somehow got me to think that he might not last a while sitting through the game. I cannot be more wrong. Apparently, it was our son who has kind of set a family game night as he became hooked to playing Monopoly Jr. for a while. He read through the instructions himself and got on to being the banker, collects, distributes the money allotted for each player like a pro in no time. He was a natural! 🙂
With my home-based work and the plateful of things I do on a daily basis, it can be hard to draw the line when to stop and just spend time with the family. Our family game time, which something that our son ever so looks forward to, at least twice a week, allows for us to strike that balance between working and family bonding time, which should really be of utmost priority.
It was with Monopoly Jr. that our son learned to apply his Math. Since there was not a chance yet at his age for him to buy stuff for himself, the Monopoly game allowed for him to learn as we go along.
My son taking his turn on the board (below photo). While some would rather play in the living room, we love playing board games on the family bed so we get to cuddle in between. We have to be more careful though, because those ticket booths stray when we kind of get overwhelmed with the tickling intermission that we sometimes have in between too. But we’re not worried. Because we can be pretty territorial. We somehow learned the art of memorizing which our respective properties are. I especially love that Monopoly Jr. is designed to be played long enough to hold a child’s attention span.
Although we are not exactly all against game consoles, (our Wii and xbox360 will prove that) board games are still the best for us. The interaction that game consoles can’t give us, the board game can.
Family Game Nights allow us to teach our son good sportsmanship. Our son used to have this tendency of wanting to win every single game. But we had to teach him that life does not work that way and losing is not all that bad. The face to face interaction that board games allow for family to have is priceless. It just is! As much as we love technological innovations, it has this tendency to rob us from nurturing real relationships, not just the virtual ones.
Then there is also our church family. Here is one of the shots my husband took during one of their after J@M Evaluation and planning meetings. Our church’s (www.sbcmakati.org) JIVE Youth group has a monthly outreach event and my husband gathers the youth leaders the day after for assessment. They also make it a point to have a breather like having fun time playing Guesstures over pizza in between evals and plannings.
The corner of our humble church is witness to not just meetings but also fun bonding times with the young people that have stepped up in the ministry and are now making an impact as they reach out to the younger generation.
fellow mommy bloggers Jane, Mauie and Teacher Julie
And last Saturday, I had a real fun time with fellow parent bloggers at The Borough playing Taboo. It was my first time to play it and even if I totally flunked during the first round. I have kind of gotten around how it works as we went along. It was too fun that I am set to get one in time for Christmas. It was a real blessing for us to know that there is now a local company that distributes Hasbro board games – Color Mix Corporation.
I remember all the trouble we had to go through trying to look for Guesstures in toy stores years ago. It was the one thing in my list that I requested from my mom to buy for me when she was in the States. But she wasn’t able to find the one that I liked. We like the old school type, not the electronic. I almost bought via eBay once. But I wasn’t willing to pay for the high shipping cost. Why, they will even make perfect gifts for the coming holidays. Check out Color Mix’s Multiply Store for the list of products, including Hasbro game boards, they carry. I ordered two already – UpWords and Taboo. I can’t wait to have them in time for Christmas gatherings with friends and love ones. 🙂
