Tag: charades

Take Summer Outside

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Here’s a round-up of a few ways we played in the summer sun today, all with one common factor: the activity had to get us outside!

First up was a round of animal charades. The idea was to spot an animal and then move like it. Everyone else guesses what you are! Travis spotted a bee and loved buzzing like one.

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In fact he was so enamored with the bees that it was hard to get him to spot a second animal, but he could also crouch and hop like a squirrel.

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Little sister, meanwhile, loved pretending to fly like the birds she saw. Or getting down low to crawl like an ant bug.

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I loved that this simple activity really got them paying attention to how animals move.

Then it was time for a nature walk. As we strolled on a nearby path, we pulled out an oldie-but-goodie, searching out animal homes and guessing who lived inside each.

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This time, Travis snapped pictures with the instant camera, too!

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We also embarked on a leaf hunt! I challenged him to find 5 different leaves and then we used a nature guide to try to identify each one.

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There was such a thrill every time we found a corresponding picture. It was a great activity for talking about similarities and differences.

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Travis glued the leaves to poster board once home and we labeled them, making this a great approximation of an elementary school science project.

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He then drew the leaves, a pretty picture we decided to mail on to a friend!

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To end the outdoor fun, we repeated a classic activity: tracing an item’s shadow to see how it changed over the course of the day.

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Our intent wasn’t to make a full sundial, but just to watch how the shadow changed at intervals. We color-coded our markings for a pretty result!

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Foodie Family Dice Games & Game Design

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In conjunction with our latest Raddish Kids recipes, tonight was family “date night”! The activity: board games, charades, dice games, and a game of our very own creation!

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First, we did a little investigating; Travis and I talked about games in general, and the way they teach concepts of fairness, taking turns, and following the rules. More specifically, I then showed him a clip about the history of dice in this suggested video (Note: There are some bleeped out curse words, but they went right over Travis’s head). If you want to skip the video, just share some fun facts, like how dice have been around for 5,000 years (wow!).

Next, we cut out and folded up the two foodie dice provided in this month’s crate and played a round of “No Tomato.”

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The rules are simple: roll the dice and rack up a point for every food tossed except… if you roll a tomato you lose your points for that round!

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Travis loved taking a risk and giving one more toss on his turn, daring to inch his score closer to the 12 points needed to win.

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The game was also a great lesson in score-keeping. He loved being in charge of our tally sheet, and erasing when someone lost their points.

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Now it was time to design our own game! We settled on a few basics, using the helpfully provided Game Checklist as a guide. The theme of our game was Travis’s much-loved Spiderman. The goal was to reach the end of the path first. As he happily colored in decorations for the board, I drew the path and set up pitfalls.

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Oh no, Spiderman’s enemies could make you lose a turn or get stuck until you rolled a certain number.

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Lego men were our playing pieces, and we used a dice to move players around the board.

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We played so many fun family rounds!

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We followed up with another game using the Raddish dice, “Rad Yatzy”, a take on regular Yahtzee only using the foodie dice instead of pips.

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Cap off your family “date” with any other board games your kids love, or a round of charades.

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Update: We had to wait until we had a large enough group of family members (6 people or more!), and then we could play a final foodie dice game: Catch the Radish!

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Two people opposite each other toss the dice, but must pass it to the next player if they roll a radish. The first person to have both dice at the same time wins!