Here’s a new game for gamers and the rest of us. It’s a game designed to put more than our console-fingers to work. The idea is “to make our communities safer, kinder, more just, and better places to live.” I’m talking about the Compassion Games. Anyone can participate from anywhere.
For details, including how to join a team and play, go to http://compassiongames.org.
Remember playing out in the yard just about every day when you were a kid? Sixty percent of parents answering a survey said they did. Yet, today, only 30% of kids aged 3 – 12 have daily playtime outside. And they have five structured, mostly indoor activities per week rather than free play.
Experts say that the fresh air, opportunities to experience nature, and unconfined freedom of being outdoors is healthy for kids. Other experts say that unstructured play stimulates the imagination while helping kids learn to make and keep friends, keeping kids healthy, and fighting obesity. As a 2013 American Academy of Pediatrics article said, such activity offers kids “cognitive, social, emotional and physical benefits.”
So let’s take our kids back to our own childhoods, to the park, the playground, or the trike or sandbox in the back yard. Or just into the yard and let their imaginations come up with a game, because they will.
I’ve been too serious again lately. And, it’s Friday and the start of a nice, long weekend. Besides, as my regular readers know, I can’t resist plays on words. My mind is just twisted that way. I hope you enjoy these. Blame Walt Landers. I got this from him. (You may want to do a Ctrl/Alt scroll up to enlarge.)
Sunday is EARTH DAY. It’s a day to celebrate our Earthly home and give some thought to how we can protect it. This kid shows that it can actually be child’s -play:
What a fun day! I didn’t want to go to a stupid old Earth Day Fair. Then Mom told me the game we’d play. I’d pick something there and bring it home to do. So could Shari and Mom and Dad. Shari’s project is dumb. She keeps turning off the light when I’m on the pot too long. I thought the black hose Dad and I set up to heat our pool was really stupid, but it works. Mom put out a birdhouse and feeder but had to move them over ‘cuz of the bird poop. I didn’t know we had that many birds in our neighborhood! My Earth Day thing’s best of all. I put a bunch of worms in a barrel in our backyard and watch them turn stuff into dirt. What’s really fun is the family rule that all of us have to help all the others with their project. That means I get to chase Shari around with a bunch of worms and not get into too much trouble. You oughta try this game. It’s fun!
Today is the first day of winter. Time to change some habits. Here’s a helpful list.
This winter, think of both your immediate and your extended family.
To begin this otherwise serious political week, here’s a bit of American historical trivia you might enjoy. See if you are playing with a full deck.
Card games have always been an American pastime. ‘Way back, some politicians decided that cards should be taxed—but only (politician logic here) the ace of spades. Of course, people can always find a way around paying taxes, as they did in this situation: they bought decks with only 51 cards (no ace of spades). Trouble is, how many games can be played with only 51? Not many. True card-players thought this was absurd, that the people pulling this tax ploy were stupid or dumb—because they weren’t “playing with a full deck.”
Like the politicians who dreamed up that tax in the first place….????
Remember the excitement as a young kid of getting together with a couple of your friends to play? Maybe one would bring a ball, another his dog. You’d run around, devising games and new rules as you went. When you were tired, you’d stop, sit under a shade tree, and complain about your siblings or a mean teacher. In other words, you’d hang out together, enjoying each other’s company.
Contrast that to what was on TV’s 7 on Your Side earlier this week. The segment compared video games for parents thinking about getting one for their child for Christmas. What interested me, though, was the scene: three young boys, presumably friends who had come together to play, sit in a circle, each totally absorbed in his own video-game world. No words or glances were exchanged, no sharing of what was going on in the device clutched in any of the young hands. No indication that any of them knew that anyone else was present in that intimate-looking circle. In short, no interaction.
Me and my video game. Who needs friends?