Luna's Baublebilities

I'm working up to posting about our favorite Christmas traditions - including a recipe for our favorite Christmas Eve Clam Chowder - but i don't have time today. Suffice it to say that our family loves to play games - and we particularly love word games. One of my favorite holiday memories is that of a killer round of The Minister's Cat with my Brother-in-Law. He and I beat everyone else but we couldn't beat each other.

That was years ago before motherhood co-opted most of my vocabulary synapses. I now have a hundred ways of saying "Stop that right now!" but it takes me longer to think of interesting adjectives to apply to said minister's feline.

Consternation is more my speed. This is a slow game - played over several days.

One player takes the Boggle game out and spells a word, preferably a very long word, and places it in the game board. The more convoluted the layout of the word, the better. And make sure that the letters face in different directions or you'll give yourself away before the game even starts. (The word in the photo above is consternation.)

The game board is left in a central location - dining room table is good, or next to the hearth, with a pad of paper. Other family members look at the board throughout the day and write down the words they find within the board. The game is won when someone finds the original word. The winner gets to put their own long winded word in and the game starts over. There is no timer, no rush and makes good use of time huddled near the fireplace or while chewing Peanut Butter and Jelly. It is a great vocabulary builder for older homeschoolers and a good spelling exercise. It is like a traditional word find but more social and competitive.