Think Outside the Box with Store Bought Games

Store bought games can be fun but we don't always have to play by the rules!  Take for example our Elefun game which we love and which has been enjoyed by both of my kids.  

We have been learning CVC words for awhile now and the last thing I want is for it to become boring.  I thought using this game, that my daughter already really enjoys, would help keep her interest. Here's how we changed the rules:

We took out the butterflies that come with Elefun and I replaced them with cut pieces of party streamers.  Shortly before we played this game we celebrated my husband's birthday, and instead of tossing the streamers I gave them a second life with this game.  I wrote a CVC word on each cut piece of streamer, which would now act as the 'butterflies.'  I decided to only use animal CVC words which I also wrote on a piece of paper and later laminated. The point of the new game was when one of the pieces of paper were caught my daughter would have to do two things:

1. Sound out the word 

 2. Act out the word

 

Once all the 'butterflies' were caught she matched the word  to the word on the paper and wrote either her first name letter or mine in the box next to the word. This showed which one of us caught that word, and whoever filled up all the CVC words first won the game.  

Catching......

Sounding.......

Writing......

Here's what we learned playing by the new rules:

1. Recognizing and Sounding out CVC words

2. Acting out/identifying with animals and animal sounds

3. Writing skills

4. Counting

5. Hand/eye coordination

Take a peek at your games and see how you can think outside the box and change the rules in a way that will help your child learn while having fun!