Over the past few weeks, we have been introducing board games to the friends in the Purple Room. Board games are a fun way to practice many tricky skills like impulse control, waiting your turn, unfavorable outcomes, good sportsmanship, and following explicit instructions/rules of the game. The different games also include different ways of practicing fine motor, such as using a grabber tool, moving a game piece, or spinning the spinner, as well as cognitive and language skills – naming shapes and colors, counting, and identifying numbers.
The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game/Shelby’s Snack Shack Game
The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game and Shelby’s Snack Shack Game both follow the same concept – get the most items to your “tree” or in your dog bowl. In the case of the squirrel, you are obviously collecting acorns and have to match the correct colors! For Shelby the dog, you are finding bones on the beach. In both games, there are sneaky animals who steal bones or acorns from others, a pesky seagull or wind that blows all of your bones/acorns back to the starting place, and include a sharing turn where you have to be kind and share an acorn/bone with a friend. Of course, the Purple friends enjoy being the sneaky squirrel most of all! We have learned to be resilient when the wind blows all of our acorns away or someone takes one of our bones, and remind ourselves that it is part of the fun!
Friends and Neighbors
Friends and Neighbors is a wonderful, collaborative problem-solving game. Different from the format of a standard board game where the goal is to win, this game helps to build our social-emotional skills by solving problems of the characters in the game, as well as offering help to your neighbors and friends. Each friend reaches into the mystery “solution” bag, and pulls out a token to solve a problem on their board or a friends. Some examples include: finding a step stool to reach something far away, sharing a bear when a friend is sad, or using towels to wipe up a spill. The Purple friends have loved being problem solvers and helping one another.
Other Fun Games
Some other fun games we have introduced include Raccoon Rumpus, Snails Pace, Feed the Woozle, and The Pete the Cat Button Game. What games do you play together at home?
