Some time ago, I stumbled on this company, and we just can’t get enough of their games! The company developed out of company owner Jim Deacove’s philosophy that competition isn’t necessary to make games fun.
Instead, Family Pastimes‘ games foster creative, cooperative play. They’re a wonderful, fun way to develop logic skills.
We were hooked with our first game: Max. The goal of the game is to prevent Max the cat from eating the three little critters: a mouse, a bird and a chipmunk. Children have to work together to prevent this misfortune. They must think about the number of moves in which the cat can catch each one, and when the cat gets too close, tempt him back to the porch with kitty treats. Ultimately, each critter needs to make use of the paths and shortcuts to get to his own home before Max catches him. Rather than having their own game piece, children work together to keep Max at bay. We bought Sleeping Grump at the same time.
After that, I stumbled on Granny’s House in a Salvation Army Thrift Store in Hong Kong. I was excited because we were really enjoying Max and Sleeping Grump, but didn’t know when we’d get back to Canada to buy any more of these wonderful games.
When we returned to Canada from China, we purchased Snowstorm (very Canadian), and while on the road recently, we found two new ones: Caves and Claws and Berries, Bugs and Bullfrogs.
The selection of games for the various age ranges and the various scenarios children can play with is amazing, considering they all spring from the imagination of one man! We’re already making a wish list for the next game we want to play. Maybe Let’s Make Pizza!
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Carey, our family’s first cooperative game was Snail’s Pace Race – great for very young children. We also had Snowstorm – it was my now-14 year old’s favourite for years and every now and then she still pulls it out.
For older children (8 +), Break the Safe adds a lot of excitement. There is a timer that you have to beat, and on every turn you move your own mover and the security guard and guard dog in the bad guy’s complex, so you have to move quickly. (Sounds a bit like Max that you described above.)
Now we have Telestrations – a combination of Pictionary and Telephone (remember that campfire game where you sit in a circle and whisper a phrase to the person beside you and see if it makes it around the circle intact?) Everyone has their own book and erasable marker – everyone draws the word or phrase on their dealt card on the first page of their book, then passes their book to the next player who looks at the drawing and writes what he/she thinks the drawing is on the next page, then passes the book to the next player who draws what that person wrote on the next page, and so on around the circle. At the end everyone shows page by page what happened to their word/phrase. we really enjoy this and also play it with our adult friends.
We do always play competitive games with our girls too – a
Oops – didn’t get everything in …
About competition – When our girls started playing sports at young ages (soccer, T-ball) it was always meant to be just for fun, without keeping score. But the kids kept score to themselves and knew at the end of every game if they had won or lost.
I also think that children need to learn how to win and lose graciously. There will be applications for jobs, universities, etc in the future and they need to learn how to a) put forth their very best effort to stand out among the other applicants, and b) be gracious about the outcome.
All the best,
Jo
Jo, I totally agree. We play competitive games too, and it’s important for kids to learn how to gracefully lose. The element of co-operation does help, though, when you have a five-year-old playing with a nine-year-old! I think graciousness improves with age–sometimes, anyway.
Jo, I totally agree. We play competitive games too, and it’s important for kids to learn how to gracefully lose. The element of co-operation does help, though, when you have a five-year-old playing with a nine-year-old! I think graciousness improves with age–sometimes, anyway.