The dog game

We had the Responsible Pet Ownership Program visit us this week.

Responsible Pet Ownership visit Tuesday 8.9.10 001

We met Celia and her dog Barnaby.  We danced, sang, pretended to be dogs, and learnt how to pat a dog and when it’s safe to pat one. And we are enjoying lots of dog stories and games.

dog game Responsible Pet Ownership Program visit 001

One of the games we are playing at present is the dogs game.

We use table games a lot at kinder  – they are very motivating, but we find that many commercial games are too complicated or take too long to play. The ones we make are  more open-ended,  to suit the skills and understanding of the players. The children like to make up their own rules – as long as everyone agrees!

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Kylie and Jade set the game up according to how it seemed it should be played, with bones to be collected if you land on a “bone” space.

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Then the boys put a bone on every space, to increase their chance of picking up a bone.

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Then Jade and Samuel decided to put 2 bones on every space, so each of them would be able to pick one up wherever they landed.

There’s a lot of discussion, negotiation and problem-solving involved here – and adding new elements actually increases the counting and maths involved – so we are all winners!

4 Thoughts.

  1. What a great game! I must get around to making something like it….(perhaps in the school holidays!) I can imagine the amazing interactions and sharing and turn taking that would be going on here. Also I can see that there would be a lot of exploration of numeracy concepts through this experience (there’s some intentional teaching for you!) We use a lot of different board games at Kinder but I agree with your comments about the obscure rules and rigidity of them and I also find that the commercial games take too long to play.

  2. We recently posted on the Responsible Pet Ownership Program which visited our children a couple of weeks back. It really is a valuable program which I hope everyone is getting involved in. As for the game … you’ve got to love a game with flexible rules … great idea Louise!
    Donna 🙂 🙂

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