Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in silicon valley, CA

Five Things To Look For in a Preschool Game

by bonggamom

March 16, 2009

We're giving away a classic Candyland game!  Keep reading to find out how to enter...

Heads up, everyone, Family Game Nights are back!   Libraries around Silicon Valley host them regularly:  for example, the Palo Alto library is having Game Day on March 20, and the San Jose library's Game Day is on the 27th.  In this economy, Game Nights make sense; they're a fun, inexpensive way for families to bond and reconnect.  But 4-year olds can hardly be expected to sit still for 5 minutes, let alone participate in classic Game Night standbys like Monopoly or Pictionary.  What sort of games should parents play with their preschoolers on Family Game Night or any night?

In today's guest post, toy expert Jim Silver discusses features that parents should look for when choosing games for their preschoolers.  Jim is a widely recognized and often-resourced authority on the toy and licensing industries, having worked within the publishing and toy industries for more than 20 years.  He's also editor-in-chief for www.TimeToPlayMag.com, a great website parents can go to for toy, gaming and entertainment information.   Read below to learn 5 things parents should look for in a preschool game, then check out Jim's list of top preschool games for 2009. 

Five things to look for in a Preschool Game

By Jim Silver, editor in chief, TimetoPlayMag.com

1. Easy to play right out of the box. Instructions should be very simple and easy, so that you can open the box and play right away. Set up should be minimal, which also means clean up should be too. Young children don't have the patience for long instructions, and parents don't want a lot of mess.

2. Appropriate levels of reading, color matching, sequencing and memory for the age group. Playing the game should be fun...not frustrating. The great thing is that your children will let you know when they're ready for more advanced games. The child who loves Candy Land for months may suddenly realize he's too old for it, for instance.

3. Correct balance of chance and strategy. For younger children, the balance should be more chance than strategy. They're learning counting, memory, and matching among other skills. As they get older, strategy-thinking a few moves ahead-can be introduced. Kids also respond well to games that have a clear winner, even if it's not them. Children like the defined beginning and ending of a game with a clear objective.

4. 15 minutes or less. The younger the child, the quicker a game needs to be completed before a child gets bored or loses focus. For a three-year-old, a game should be completed in less than 15 minutes. As a child gets a little older, 20 minutes is the magic number. Many game companies are now putting game playing times on their packages; look for these to help gauge what's right for your child.

5. Motor skills. Many games greatly enhance motor skills through the need of hand-eye coordination. Many young children don't have enough opportunities to develop these skills, and games are a great occasion for younger kids to develop them through play.

Want to get a head start on your Family Game Night games collection?  Being Savvy Silicon Valley and http://www.timetoplaymag.com/ are giving away the classic preschooler's board game, Candyland!  If you don't have Candyland at home (or want to give one as a present), now's your chance to win.  To enter, simply leave a comment below with your email address and your favorite board game when you were a child.

For extra entries, you can also do any or all of the following:
1)  Follow TimeToPlayMag on Twitter (twitter id @TimeToPlay). 
2)  Follow Being Savvy Silicon Valley on Twitter (twitter id @savvySV).
3)  Blog or tweet about this giveaway.

For each extra entry you complete, please leave a separate comment telling me which extra entry you did (leave your Twitter ID or the link to your tweet or blog post). 

This giveaway is limited to US mailing addresses only, and ends on March 30, 2009.  I'll draw a winner at random and post the winner's name the next day.  Good luck!

52 Pick-Up

by Shawn Burns

December 24, 2008

It's Christmas Eve and your ol' Uncle Shawn is heading out of town. The weekend, usually previewed here in this space, will probably happen regardless of what I do about it, and I expect much of it will involve holiday cheer of some sort. So instead of a Weekend Outlook post today I have a Counting-Cleaning Classic for your amusement. We keep various things in shoeboxes in our  Read more...

Building Early Literacy Skills

by Bonggamom

November 21, 2008

For today's expert post, instead asking a guest to write about his or her topic of expertise, I'm featuring highlights from a great educational discussion I attended a couple of weeks ago . I listened to Dr. Anne Cunningham of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education speak on helping children learn (and love) to read. Since I have two preschoolers, I soaked in every word -- and I'd like to  Read more...