Sorry for the lull in blogging about gameschooling, and tracking my book and game a day for the #aboookandagameaday challenge at thewaldockway.com. My trip to Utah interrupted my streak.

 

During my Veggie Gal lunch on Friday in Utah, we saw deer in the backyard!

 

Above picture: Utah the morning I left to go back to AZ.

Below picture: Arizona, after I got back, the same day as above. What a difference lines of latitude make!

 

We’ve had lots of fun gameschooling, I just haven’t had as much to blog about it what with getting ready for the trip and then getting back into the swing of things afterwards.

 

We celebrated Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birthday on Feb. 6 in my Hero class, right before I left to go to Utah, with the chocolate cake above. It’s so providential that my Thursday class was on his very birthday, right after we read and discussed the book in my class! If you don’t know who he is, you are in for a treat. Read the graphic novel based on his life below. It’s so cool! He was an amazing, unselfish man.

I’ve had fun prepping and giving lectures and activities for my Hero class, mentoring my own children, celebrating Valentine’s with two parties, fulfilling my church job, and the normal mothering and housewife stuff.

 

Here are the games and books we’ve enjoyed the past three weeks. If you have any questions about the games or books, put them in the comments and I will answer.

 

 

This Book of Mine is so perfect for February! It showcases one of my first loves: books! Oh book of mine, be my Valentine!

 

 

The above book has to be the perfect book for winter! So delightful!

 

 

The above picture’s laughs and smiles came from the game below. It’s Cranium WOW. We played kids vs. grownups.

I won the game with my two wonderful sketches that I drew, below, with my eyes closed, to get my hubby to guess the words, “skate park” and “Spongebob Squarepants.” I love that my husband gets what I am communicating! These sketches should definitely be framed!

Pretty good for me being blindfolded, if I do say so!

For an adult gameschooling night for my homeschooling group, we played a love letter game with conversation hearts. So fun!

 

 

 

The above and below pics show the Liebrary board game that I adapted to use with picture books and children’s chapter books for my kids’ gameschooling group. I call it Liebrary Jr. You can get the directions for making a DIY version here in my PDF about “How to Build a Gameschool Collection on a Budget.”

The Cookies game is explained here. We played it for Christmas and again for Valentine’s Day, this time using Sugar Cookies by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, instead of Christmas Cookies. We also played it at my adult gameschooling night. Very fun! My husband won among the group of 8 of us!

 

 

The above is the Worst Case Scenario Jr. game. I picked it up for $2.40 while thrifting. It’s fun for learning about survival skills and involves logic, reasoning, and science.

Jane Addams was amazing! I learned more about her from reading this book than from my high school history class. A great book on friendship for Valentine’s month.

Speaking of great books on friendship for Valentine’s month, I love the books above and below. Both are illustrated by my sister Emily’s BYU roommate, Fumi, who hails from Japan. They were also roommates in New York City post-college, breaking into the professional art world.  You can read an interview that Emily did with Fumi over on Emily’s blog here. We love Fumi’s cheery style!

 

 

I finally gave in to the overabundance of Scene It? DVD-based board games “scene” while I’m thrifting, and bought the Sports version above, to bond over with my boys. It was still in the shrink wrap, for $4. I think I enjoyed it more than they did! I won, because of my random store of knowledge about pop culture while being a teen in the 80s. I answered correctly the final question: What team did Ted Turner used to own, based in Atlanta? Score! I did not know, however, the answers to most of the questions, that’s for sure. We’ll be playing it again.

 

Rory’s Story Cubes are so great for playing during lunchtime!

The Contender is such a fabulous game to learn about political issues and to spark conversation about voting Constitutionally. I plan on adapting this game for my Hero Class!

I picked up Art Shark yesterday while thrifting. Using my educator’s discount I got it for $2.40! It’s great for learning art history. And it looked never used! The cards were still in the wrappers! I think God knew I was disappointed with another art game I bought recently on amazon and is making it up to me.

 

I love the painting on the left by Rossetti! So beautiful!

Are you bored of winter? Get into more board and card games! I do believe God inspired people to make them to beat the winter blahs! Game playing and gameschooling help you get your kids off screens, so you can create community in your home. Yay! Here’s a great book about that:

You can buy it on amazon or read it for free by signing up for a free two month trial of scribd.com over here, using my affiliate link.

What is scribd.com? scribd.com is a collection of books, audiobooks, magazines, newspapers, and sheet music that you can access using an app on your mobile device. Much better than Audible, because you have unlimited access to all those resources for a low flat monthly fee. I have Audible too and love them both!

Enjoy reading and playing!