Games for 6-year olds

Here’s M-ito’s list of most played with toys over the last month. The key word here is LEGO, LEGO, LEGO. When I was growing up we had model airplanes, ships and tanks. Children today have LEGOs. And they are better. Let’s face it, there’s no glue (and subsequently no glue sniffing), no razor to trim the flash and therefore no stitches from cuts, no parts that don’t exactly fit together, no waiting for the glue to dry before putting the next piece on, no painting the pieces when you’re done. What you get with LEGOs is an incredibly complex model with a ton of pieces, that works like a giant puzzle with directions that are fully visual (no reading required) and that can be played with when you’re done. The pieces snap together perfectly and they look very, very cool in their realistic colors and stick-on decals. My job is to help find the pieces for M-ito that he can’t find for himself. He puts all the pieces together and won’t allow me to help with that at all. Sometimes he’ll ask me to see what’s wrong if he thinks he’s made a mistake but that’s it. He’s even figured out that if you open only one bag at a time – and the bag that is numbered to go with the pieces he’s working on – it’s easier to find the right pieces. We did all the Aqua Raiders sets by opening all the bags at once and mixing them together. Not easy for Daddito to find the smaller pieces with his failing eyesight. Still these are great things to do with your kids. I heard a father tell another parent this when he was asked about the bionicle he was buying. “We do them together,” he said. How cool is that? M-ito can work on the more complex sets for hours. His favorites to date include:

• Aqua Raiders
• Star Wars
• Indiana Jones
• Bionicles
• All of the Creator 3 in 1 models (you take the model apart and create two others with the same pieces)
• Mars Mission
• Castle

What’s the downside? Many of the sets are war-like and have guns, swords, knives, etc… So when we play nobody ever gets killed – they get knocked out and always come back to fight again. It’s a small victory over violence at playtime but it’s all I’ve got.

M-ito’s other top six favorite games are (in no particular order):

• There’s a Moose in the House (excellent card game from my favorite game company Gamewright Games)
• Duck Duck Bruce (another excellent card game from Gamewright)
• Dino-opoly (the old favorite for the dinosaur set)
• Zooreka (a great game about building your own zoo from Cranium Games)
• Slamwich (another game from Gamewright about making a sandwich!)
• Stack (a stacking dice game that’s very colorful and easy to carry from Talicor Inc.)

We’ve also added baseball mitts (I got one too) – though a knock on the head with a spongy version of a baseball has caused a small set-back, a volleyball, a handball, and a fishing pole (two attempts to fish and no luck so far but lots of fun). What’s sad is that some of the old favorites like a ton of Little People sets and figures have left to go on to other children. Sad and beautiful, both at the same time – of course.

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