Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. So I'm excited. I think this is gonna be fun, at least for me.
Hopefully for you too. Most of the time you hear me talking about play, I'm usually talking about how to help nurture our child's ability to create their play, to be self directed. Because there are so many benefits to this that are well documented. Creatively, cognitively, socially, emotionally and physically.
In terms of developing skills and self confidence. There's really nothing like knowing that you have ideas and you can play them out with other children or by yourself. This is a lifelong gift we can give our children. So most of the time you're hearing me talk about that, often it's about our boundaries being comfortable, not being as involved in play, being able to be a supporter and a respond rather than somebody that's doing the play for them in an entertaining way.
Therefore possibly creating dependencies. So today's gonna be completely different because I'm going to talk about games to play with our children. It might be surprising for you to know that my family is a games family. We love games.
Even now my kids are adults and we still play games when we're all together and we really get a kick out of that. And as a parent I did that too. I would play games with my children when they asked me. Not always because I had also tried to cultivate their self directed play.
They didn't ask me that often to play with them. I would enjoy watching them a lot of the time. I'd enjoy being in the next room and just hearing what was going on. I loved those days when my children used to talk out loud to themselves.
Playing the different characters that they were imagining or, or just thinking out loud. And of course children stopped doing that, I don't know, around five or six to eight years old. Somewhere in there, they don't do that as much, especially if they think you're watching. But I love those days.
So I got a lot out of them being able to play on their own too. I also got breaks. I got to do things I wanted to do and feel like they were doing something really positive. But then we would also play things together.
We had games. Some of them we made up on our own. Some my children brought to me that I maybe they'd heard somewhere or someone else had played with them. All of these games are creative, they're simple.
They need almost no preparation and only minimal equipment. Just household stuff, which I love. They're unplugged, screen free, non board games that unboard children and they're all about playing rather than producing something or winning or losing. Best of all for me as a parent who is not crafty, they don't cause big mistakes and mess ups that disappoint everyone and make me look foolish because I didn't inherit those crafty genes.
There's no product involved. So some of these games are more eccentric and originated in my family and some of them are so odd that I really wondered why my kids enjoyed them so much. But these all generated giggles and fun. So I thought I would share them with you today.
All right, the first one is sardines. Everybody's probably played that before. Heard of it? Need three players or more.
The more this wish year and a two year old can play this. So age two to 102 and as many of you know, this is a classic game of hide and seek, but it's turned inside out. So only one player hides and then the others try to find him and secretly snuggling next to him in his hiding spot. And then the last player to find the hiding spot opens a can of very giggly sardines.
I've been that last person. It gets so quiet and you know you're the last person. It's like really embarrassing because you know everyone's how you're gonna laugh at your expense. But then for a child that's very young, it's better to have them team up with someone so they're not going hiding on their own.
But yeah, kids love it. It's actually really fun for grownups too. So that's a really fun one. Next folding game.
Now there are actually two different versions of this. I'm going to talk about the one that's I would say for ages 4 and up, what you need for this game is paper. Just regular letter sized paper, crayons or markers. I guess you could also do it with a pencil.
Each player has a piece of paper that's folded into thirds. Or you could do it with quarters if you have four or more players. And then each player draws on the paper that's in front of them at the top of the folded page, they draw a head and shoulders of any kind. It could be a person, an animal, a vegetable, a mineral, a monster, an alien, whatever.
Just in that top folded section, that top third. And what they'll do is then continue the shoulder lines so the outside of the shoulders very slightly so it goes onto the next folded section, the second folded section, the middle section. So the next player can have those lines for guidance. For what they're going to draw, but they're not going to see that first part at the top of the page.
We fold that part back, each of us, of what we made. That head, neck and shoulders thing that we made. We fold that page back to hide what we've drawn and only expose the rest of the paper with just those little lines of guidance showing for the next person. And I'll share a picture of this in the transcript, so don't panic if it's not making sense.
Each one of us passes our sheet of paper onto the next person, and then each of those players draws a midsection of any kind. It can include hands and arms. If this creation happens to have hands and arms, and they can be in any position. And from there we're going to continue those lines of the hips and maybe the tops of the legs very slightly into the bottom folded section.
So there'll be maybe four lines there, two for each leg. Those will be slightly coming down for the next person who has the third section. And if you do this in four sections, you can have it be the head, the midsection, the hips to the knees, and then the knees to the feet. We've done it that way, too.
It's pretty fun. So now we're going to fold that part back, too. So all the next person's going to see on our paper is the bottom section with just these four little lines coming down at the very top of that section. So all they're getting is that.
And then for this last round, everybody draws legs and feet, any kinds of legs and feet, or, you know, maybe it's a mermaid. They have a tail. Who knows? We just have fun with it.
And really, like, if somebody's drawing stick legs, it still comes out cool. It's amazing. So then we're going to unfold and just enjoy our communal person or beast or thing, whatever it is, and maybe we'll name it if we want to. So this game, long hours of fun.
There's this great surprise at the end with what it looks like, makes us all laugh. So that's folding game. There's another folding game that children have to be older, they have to be able to read and write. And this game, you just at the very tippy top of a piece of paper, as small as possible, you make a picture of anything.
It could be a little star or a heart, an animal's face, could be like a scribble, anything. You pass that to the next person, the next person looks at that and they think of a way to describe it simply. Maybe they're using an analogy. Maybe they're just titling it with a couple of words.
So what we're going to do then is fold down that picture. So now the top picture is now hidden and I'm writing on top of it this description. And now the next person doesn't unfold it and look at the picture that was under there. All they see is that description.
And then they fold that down. And on top of that, we're going to make a picture that that description brings to mind. Anything could be totally random. And I'll be showing an image of this in the transcript as well.
So now you pass it to the next person. They make a description on top of that, folding it down a tiny bit, and no one's looking at what's underneath. That goes on and on and on until you get to the end of all the papers, and then you open it up and it is hilarious. It's a hilarious adult game because it's sort of like telephone, but much more visual.
You see how something gets totally distorted and becomes something completely different because of people's imagination. And you might end up with a description, or you could end up with another picture, but it's probably better to end up with a description at the end. So everyone stops there. And then, wow, does this describe that very first picture at all?
No, it doesn't. Okay, third game, we made this one up. Close your eyes and open your mouth. So all this takes is a parent and one child or more.
Could be ages 2 to 102. And all we need here is some food. Players take turns closing their eyes while mom, dad, or a trusted older sibling brings tiny bites of various edible items. Nothing.
Totally gross. That's not fair. And the players have to guess with their eyes closed what they're tasting. Sort of exercise in trust as well, because you're closing your eyes and you're really hoping somebody doesn't give you something that you don't like at all.
So we try to be very kind. And of course, it's very tempting to take full advantage and put highly nutritious foods into our child's mouth that we know that they don't like. But I've found it's really best to hold the cod liver oil and give samples that children can at least tolerate. So close your eyes and open your mouth.
All right, next game. Copy. My kids turned me onto this. I did not pick this one up, but I never played it as a kid.
Two or more players, ages 3 to 103, all you need is paper, crayons, or markers. Now, this one's really, really simple, but my children play it with me and with each other, better yet, for hours. So entertaining. Each child has a piece of paper, and one child draws whatever they want to draw.
A shape, a dot, a figure, whatever it is, anywhere on their paper. Then the other child tries to copy that. Then they pass the papers on or to each other if they're just two of them, and the other child or the parent tries to copy that onto their paper. And then they add something more.
So I'm going to make what you made as best I can, and I'm going to add something more, and then I'm going to pass it back to you. We're going to pass it back to each other, and then we're going to continue that idea, copying what that person added and adding a little more. So this copying back and forth, back and forth continues until the children decide that they're done. And it's so interesting, you end up with two drawings that are similar but surprisingly different as well.
So that's copy. I highly recommend it. Charades. Many of you already play charades, or you know what it is.
So we need at least two players, but the more the merrier. Small scraps of paper, pen or pencil. This game is a personal favorite of mine, and in my family, I love charades parties in my teens and 20s, so I wanted to introduce the concept to my children as soon as they were old enough to understand it. Younger children can begin by recognizing an image so they don't have to be able to read and they can act out what it represents.
There's a board game that isn't sponsoring this podcast, I promise, called Kids on Stage that has picture cards in three categories. They're either animals, actions, or objects. And children love to act them out. You saw snake pictures, so they're trying to slither like a snake to make us guess that.
And charades then became a favorite after dinner party game when we'd have friends or family over. The younger ones, yeah, they need a little help sometimes they need a partner and they need a lot of encouragement at first, but soon everybody's willing to go out on a limb, behave foolishly to try to help people guess that movie or book or famous person that they're acting out. And the things we all do are so silly. There's lots of laughter.
Spice Girls. This is one that we made up, my daughters and I. You need one adult and one child or more, maybe one older child and one Younger child. And then you need spices.
So this is a guessing game that's kind of a variation on that food game. Close your eyes and open your mouth with this one. One person closes their eyes while the other one holds a spice jar under their nose. Then you have to try to distinguish the spice.
Adults should really try this one too. It's hard. And it's interesting how some of the most commonly used spices have this really unappealing smell when you just smell them from the jar. Maybe other people know that, but I didn't.
So, yeah, another sort of, I guess you call it educational game that's actually really silly and fun. Okay, Scavenger hunt. Everybody knows what a scavenger hunt is, right? I just want to tell you a little about how I did them because it was just such a great feeling to send my kids off knowing they're going to learn a lot, that they're having a great social time if there's more than one child.
But they can do this on their own as well. They're exploring environments, preferably outdoors, so they're out in nature. Maybe for this you need at least one child, ages 3 to 103. And then we have to make a scavenger hunt.
This does take some preparatory work for us, but it's worth it because children get really, really into it. At least mine and my friends did. So it was always worth the trouble. And it was kind of fun to figure out for me too.
Gotta admit it. Yeah, I would resist sometimes at first mentally, but then I would embrace the challenge. It was really fun. We're blessed to live in a semi rural area, so we do have a nice unmanicured yard.
When I was prepping it, I would wander about, note like colors and shapes and designs of leaves, things like that, small rocks, flowers. And I'd make a list that might include something like something purple, something that smells good, something that smells bad, something sharp, something soft. And when my kids were pre readers, I would just do it with pictures. I would draw little pictures of what it was and they would try to match the picture with the real life and find it.
These searches get much more complex as children get older. And then you can get really educational. You can include items like I would say a piece of eucalyptus bark the length of your humerus, or a live isopod crustacean, which is a really poly bug. I'd be really proud of myself for figuring those out.
And then the hunt would always end up being this creative, educational, kind of rewarding for me too. Experience. It's A good accomplishment. So that's been one of our all time favorites.
Of course my kids haven't asked for that kind of thing for years unfortunately. So I'll have to wait for possible grandchildren someday. And I can make scavenger hunts for them as well. You could also do this in the house, maybe just narrowing it down to one room where you do things or in a park if you're able to supervise little kids.
So those are our mainstays. But other things my kids played and loved that really didn't involve me much at all were we'd had all these scraps and weird dress up, clothing item type things, hats and old stuff that we collected in a big box. And children would put them all together differently and make weird fashion shows. And we'd have them like walk the catwalk, pretend and maybe I'd take a movie of it.
They love to do that, especially with friends over. My oldest daughter loved making up shows or she would do shows and I did this as a kid. We actually would sell tickets to our shows and all they were were us lip syncing to Disney soundtracks. So you can get a soundtrack of a musical and have your kids just enjoy making a show to them.
But those kinds of games, we can't really say okay, this is what we're gonna do or what we're gonna do. It's more about letting those happen. Maybe giving our child the idea and then letting them take that idea and go with it, or not trusting a lot of trust around play, that's the key. The more trust we give children, the less we try to tell them what to do or how to do it.
The more confidence they feel, the more freedom they feel and the more joy they get out of this in so many areas. The way that it makes them feel like they're creative people, that makes them feel like their ideas can be a success. Those are the kind of messages we want to give children, especially in the summer when we've got some looser time. Hopefully they can explore these kinds of things.
Other board games that my kids liked, well, all my kids liked went through a Candyland phase when they were really little. Of course you have to tie me down and fly me with something to play that pretty much. I don't know why kids love it, but I didn't know why kids love it. I think because it's this wonderful idea that we're in a Candyland.
There's all this candy, but when you play the game, you're just looking at pictures of it and it's Kind of a boring game, but my kids did all like that. I have to say that was a rough one. But the board games I did like, besides Kids on Stage, Guess who I love Guess who. You can see how it's teaching deductive reasoning sort of the way that 20 Questions does.
But it's so much easier because the pictures are right in front of you. Does the person have dark hair? No. And now I can put away all these pictures of people with dark hair.
It's a very clever, simple game that I would almost always say yes to. And when I was a kid back in the Stone Ages, here's some other things that we did. I have three sisters, so there are a lot of us. And one of the things we did that actually took a lot of time, and it was a game in itself, was we had all these different games and activities we could do.
And we would make a list of all of them. A lot of them we'd made up in the past. And then we would each get to vote. We would write down number one, number two, number three, what we wanted to do the most, the second most, third most, fourth most, all the way to 10th or whatever it was.
And then we would just add up the totals and whichever game had the lowest number, that's what we would do. That kind of planning is so good for children. They learn so much. And it's such kind of a team building exercise too.
So I would consider all of this play anything the children engage in like that. You can be sure that they're learning a ton. Another thing we did, my dad worked for this early kind of Xerox type company. I don't even know if they had Xerox back then.
But he would come home with these huge sheets of paper. I guess now you could use poster board or maybe there's a place you can buy huge sheets of paper. But we would make drawings together where it wasn't like Copy that game that I brought up. It was when we were a bit older.
We would have a scene like we're in a park. That was all we would tell each other. And then each of us would make our own little scenes within the scene. I mean, we like to draw, so it wasn't such a stretch that way.
None of us were great at drawing, but we really enjoyed it. Another thing we used to do is make scary stories where we'd have sound effects and sometimes it'd be this music box that played the scary theme. Or it could be, you know, thumping or screaming. But we would make up a whole story and we would act it out on audio.
I guess that's for a bunch of kids but I remember that so well. All the fun we had doing that. Oh my gosh, so many laughs. So I really hope some of these play ideas come in handy for you.
Or maybe they inspire your children to spin off their own ideas on them. I didn't always want to play with my kids when they asked me, but honestly, when I think about it, I never regretted saying yes. It was bonding. We created memories and rituals and family lore and it was a way to carve time out of our busy lives and just focus on each other.
So enjoy the games that your family's into and consider the value and the added pleasure of doing less, enjoying more. As Monte river said, keeping it simple. I hope you get to do that this summer. Carve out some time where you have no agenda except just hanging out.
I really hope some of this helps. Thank you so much for listening. We can do this.