I've been looking forward for a while to playing games with Ollie. Up to now, though, I couldn't think of any games that were simple enough for him to play. Even "tag" in the backyard was a little confusing for him. But recently he's learned to do some of the games on my iPod Touch, especially some matching games, and so I thought he might be able to play Memory. When I got to Target today, though, I found Memory (the original version, not the new ones based on television shows and movies), Hi-Ho Cherry-O, and Candyland. I think Candyland is still too confusing. He knows his colors, but the idea of moving a playing piece is too complicated right now. So I put in the bench for later.
Tonight, though, we opened up Memory and Hi-Ho Cherry-O and played a few games. We did Memory first. The game comes with 36 pairs, but I'm only including 6 pairs right now. I explained the game to him as I put the pieces down and then took a turn first to model for him what to do. He caught on very quickly and actually made several matches even before me. But when I made my first match, he absolutely fell apart. He understood the idea of taking turns and was doing fine with that, but he wanted me to the put the pair back and let him turn the pieces up. He had as much of a tantrum as I've ever seen but got over it shortly thereafter when I started putting the game away. I explained to him again that I got to keep the pair because I matched them, and he seemed to accept that and we moved on. He actually won the first game (and no, I didn't let him win!), and we clapped every time one of us made a match. We also practiced the words "match," "same," and "different," and he seemed to comprehend them.
After Memory, we got out Hi-Ho Cherry-O. I spent several minutes talking about how the cherries are very small and so very dangerous for Emmeline. I'm storing the game out of his reach so that he only plays with it when supervised. I could see him putting one in his mouth and then choking or inadvertently putting one near Emme, who would definitely put it in her mouth. I again modeled the first turn and then let Oliver try. He learned how to move the spinner pretty well. The game requires the ability to recognize the numbers 1-4 and count that many, too, so it's great practice for him. He's learning the numbers slowly, and he's starting to understand the idea of counting out items. I don't know that he really understand the goal of the game (which is, granted, a little random) or the role of the dog, bird, and tipped cherry bucket on the spinner (I just tell him what to do when his spinner lands on those). He did try to "place" the spinner on certain spaces a few times, and I often had to remind him to spin the spinner when it was his turn (he usually just tried to copy whatever I had done on my turn).
It will be a long time before we can really sit down and "play a game" without a lot of modifications and modeling, but this was a fun first start. He seems to really enjoy it, and it's nice to have something again that's clearly our thing to do that Emme's not ready for yet. And as I expected, he's actually really good at Memory!
Tonight, though, we opened up Memory and Hi-Ho Cherry-O and played a few games. We did Memory first. The game comes with 36 pairs, but I'm only including 6 pairs right now. I explained the game to him as I put the pieces down and then took a turn first to model for him what to do. He caught on very quickly and actually made several matches even before me. But when I made my first match, he absolutely fell apart. He understood the idea of taking turns and was doing fine with that, but he wanted me to the put the pair back and let him turn the pieces up. He had as much of a tantrum as I've ever seen but got over it shortly thereafter when I started putting the game away. I explained to him again that I got to keep the pair because I matched them, and he seemed to accept that and we moved on. He actually won the first game (and no, I didn't let him win!), and we clapped every time one of us made a match. We also practiced the words "match," "same," and "different," and he seemed to comprehend them.
After Memory, we got out Hi-Ho Cherry-O. I spent several minutes talking about how the cherries are very small and so very dangerous for Emmeline. I'm storing the game out of his reach so that he only plays with it when supervised. I could see him putting one in his mouth and then choking or inadvertently putting one near Emme, who would definitely put it in her mouth. I again modeled the first turn and then let Oliver try. He learned how to move the spinner pretty well. The game requires the ability to recognize the numbers 1-4 and count that many, too, so it's great practice for him. He's learning the numbers slowly, and he's starting to understand the idea of counting out items. I don't know that he really understand the goal of the game (which is, granted, a little random) or the role of the dog, bird, and tipped cherry bucket on the spinner (I just tell him what to do when his spinner lands on those). He did try to "place" the spinner on certain spaces a few times, and I often had to remind him to spin the spinner when it was his turn (he usually just tried to copy whatever I had done on my turn).
It will be a long time before we can really sit down and "play a game" without a lot of modifications and modeling, but this was a fun first start. He seems to really enjoy it, and it's nice to have something again that's clearly our thing to do that Emme's not ready for yet. And as I expected, he's actually really good at Memory!
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