Our family moved house in December, days before Christmas. It was an exhausting experience for everyone! With my husband being up to his neck in end of year things at work it left the kids and I with the duty or packing up the old home, scrubbing it down, and doing the majority of the moving of items into our lovely new home.
Many traditions we’d normally have participated in fell by the wayside during that time. So much so, that when my children woke up on the 20th just to see a Christmas tree with lights up they were ecstatic having given up all hope that any traditions would be kept. Oh how grateful I am to the friends who helped me haul that crazy monster thing to the new house.
One of the many traditions we have is that for Christmas I tend to buy all the guys a new game for Christmas. I spend a lot of time looking over games and debating which ones will be best suited for our family and which one each person will enjoy the most. Now I know that sounds like a lot of craziness just for games, but games are crazy expensive here! Only, with all that moving I had no time at all to be bothered hunting down games.
I picked up one game for the family for Christmas and it was well loved and played. When January came around the kids mentioned a package that had arrived during our crazy moving period and wondered what was in it, I’d totally forgotten about the package which actually held a math game! While playing that fun little game one rainy Sunday afternoon, the kids mentioned that they missed how I use to splurge a bit on games.
There was a long funny conversation that followed in which the children decided I’d really become, in my own words, too cheap to purchase games. Now, truth be told, the guys had my number! And so I declared right then and there that I would purchase a new game every month for the rest of the year. There was so much laughter that our game got knocked sideways and we had to guess where to put back all the pieces, but my resolve was stronger that I would indeed purchase a new game each month. And, that’s just what I’ve been doing!
I could easily share a new game a month here with all of you. My guys are still amazed that games keep showing up at our front door, but the game I thought I’d share with you today is called Timeline. There are many different versions or expansions to this game, but we started out with two: Discovery & Events.
How I Use It
This is a neat little card game that comes in a metal tin. The cards are mini sized, but the each have a picture of an item, person, time on the card. One side has a date while the other side does not. Both sides have the same picture. The idea is to lay the cards down in chronological order.
You can slip them in wherever you think they belong, then you turn the card over and see if you are right. How’d you do? Did you place it correctly? If you did you leave it there, if not you put it in the discard pile and select a new card. The idea is to be the first person to run out of cards.
We play this game just like that. We pull it out for fun, take it camping and have taken it to many homeschool meet-ups. Sometimes we’re really amazed by where a card ends up on the timeline, but often I’m even more impressed with how well my children are aware of time in regards to the things we’ve studied & how they can logically deduce where to place their card. Other times, I’m shocked at my own dismal ability.
What I love About it:
I love that this game is a sought out item from the game cupboard. We have a huge floor to ceiling cupboard down one of our halls. That thing is packed with games and when I tell the kids to each go select two games to take to rainy day homeschool events, this is always one of the games they pick.
I love that we can practice what we learn through the year in such a fun and engaging way.
I love that it helps my kids think a bit more about when something in time might have happened simply because of what they know was available. Be it a resource, of invention.
I even love the cute little tins they come in.
What I Don’t Love
The cards are small and I understand why. If the cards were big you’d need a bigger tin, but honestly I kinda love full sized playing cards.
I don’t love some of the content on the cards. Depending on our family, you can easily fix this by choosing to remove some cards. We’ve removed some based on our own beliefs and others because we felt the card wasn’t something we needed our children to know at this time.
Bottom Line
This game really gets us thinking and researching. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said, “That can’t be right!” and run off to get a book or verify something via a quick computer search. I love that the kids love playing this and watching them and their friends work out the order of things can be a lot of fun!
To check out more fun, and possibly educational games, our family enjoys hop on over to our blog: http://blog.aussiepumpkinpatch.com/
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