If you’re one of the millions of Americans currently snowbound by the freakish storms hammering the mid-Atlantic, you might end up with a lot of time on your hands. If the cable TV goes out, you and your family might have to start talking to each other. For some people, that’s going to be terrifying. They don’t want to talk to their families … they can barely stand each other as it is.
The way I see it, you have a couple of choices. You could play online games (another list is here). This is good if your internet connection still works and you have a computer for everyone. On the other hand, you won’t be interacting with each other. It would be a shame to waste a snowbound day with everyone curled up in their own corner.
Or, you can actually play and interact with each other. There are some great ways to keep kids (and parents) from going stir-crazy. I cover some ideas in my book, “The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide.”
Let’s start with the stuff you may already have …
Sports: Do you have any Nerf balls, or small stuffed toys you can use as Nerf balls? Clear some room and start your own indoor basketball or football game. Nerf balls won’t destroy the furniture (too much) and they’re loads of fun, PLUS playing an indoor sport has the advantage of wearing your kid out.
Reading or writing as a group. You can take turns reading passages from a book or poems. If you have enough people, you can have a poetry writing contest. Or you can have everyone start with the same sentence and see how they finish the story. Some examples …
“Jimmy and Sally walked up the steps of the old, dark house – the house that was reputed to be haunted.”
“Wendy couldn’t believe it! The costume she discovered hidden in the closet gave her super powers!”
“The brave little mouse peeped out of his hiding place to look at the cat. This wasn’t going to be easy.”
Give everyone a couple blank sheets of paper and tell them to finish the story. You’d be amazed how different the stories are. And the quiet you get while everyone is writing may be a sanity saver for parents.
And if your kid isn’t much of a reader or writer, you can work on your child’s reading skills.
Artwork. If the mess of paint freaks you out, colored pencils or crayons and cheap paper are the way to go.
Play games. Haul the dust-covered games off the shelf and play them with the family. Personally, I like new games, and I’m addicted to a site called http://boardgamegeek.com/. Our family favorites include Ticket to Ride (pictured), Carcassonne, Incan Gold, Clue and variations on the Game of Life.
Then there are the entertainments you can invent on the spot.
“Cheap-Ass Games” is the name of a real gaming manufacturer, but it’s also a description of the kind of games our grandparents used to make back in the days when no one had any money. People on a budget can still play games. Here are two examples …
Game #1: Liar’s Dice. The only items you need are 5 six-sided dice for each player and plastic cups to use as dice tumblers.
Wikipedia explains the game: Five six-sided dice with traditional dot faces are generally used per player, with dice cups used for concealment. Poker dice can also be used, but some systems for bidding become difficult or impossible to use.
Each round, the players roll their dice while keeping them concealed from the other players. One player begins bidding, picking a quantity of a face 2 through 6. The quantity states the player’s opinion on how many of the chosen face have been rolled in total on the table. A 1 (”ace”) is often wild and counts as the stated face of the current bid, however the game can also be played without wilds (see variants). In a five-dice, three-player game with wilds, the lowest bid is “one 2″ and the highest bid “fifteen 6s In turn, each player has two choices; believe the previous bid is true and make a higher bid, or challenge the previous bid as being wrong. Raising the bid means either increasing the quantity, or the face value, or both, according to the specific bidding rules used. Different bidding rule sets are described below.
If the current player thinks the previous player’s bid is wrong, he challenges it, and then all dice are revealed to determine whether the bid was valid. Revealing the same number or more of the relevant face than was bid is a successful bid, in which case the bidder wins. Otherwise the challenger wins. A challenge is generally indicated by simply revealing one’s dice, though it is customary to verbally make the challenge, by saying “I call you up”, “I call”, “You’re a liar”, or simply “Liar”.
* Example: if a bid of “six fives” is challenged, the bid is successful (and the player who made it wins) if there are six or more fives, or less than six fives but enough wild aces (1s) to total six or more fives and aces (four fives and two aces, or five fives and one ace). The bid fails (the bidder is a Liar and the challenger wins) if there are fewer than six total fives and aces combined.
Game #2: The Dictionary Game. This is a game that was played in the Great Depression, and has since turned into a board game called Balderdash. All you need is at least four players, a big, unabridged dictionary, some scraps of paper and pens.
Everyone sits at a table. You pass the dictionary around. When it’s your turn, you look up the most obscure word you can find (a time limit helps here – 2 minutes, tops). You announce the word to the group and spell it, but DON’T tell them the definition.
Everyone writes down their best guess as to what the word means. If you picked the word from the dictionary, you write down the first definition from the dictionary.
Everyone turns in their scraps of paper. You shuffle them with your definition, then read all the definitions aloud.
For example: Come up with a definition for “Pickelhaub.”
Players then vote on which definition they think is correct. If they guess correctly, they get a point. If no one guesses the correct answer, you get a point for every person in the game.
The correct definition for pickelhaub, by the way, is a spike on the top of a World War I German helmet.
This is a game that’s more fun the more people you have playing, AND it’s educational.
There are other ways to pass the time. And as I explain in my book, it’s good practice for entertaining yourself and your family if and when the s**t hits the fan.
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