“[Ads by Yahoo!] Busch Gardens ® <b>Games</b>” plus 3 more |
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- Role-playing <b>games</b> pull reluctant school <b>kids</b> into a supportive crowd
- <b>Games</b> give <b>kids</b> a taste of real life
- YMCA Healthy <b>Kids</b> Day’ is April 17
| [Ads by Yahoo!] Busch Gardens ® <b>Games</b> Posted: Join your child's favorite Sesame Street Friends in a wild and wonderful new play land! Come join everyone's favorite Sesame Street friends on a family-friendly Safari adventure where the rhythms of Africa are sprinkled with giggles. It's Busch Gardens' newest land filled with kid-size rides, cool water fun and plenty of memorable adventures. Fly through the desert with Grover. Climb in Elmo's Tree House. Splash in Bert and Ernie's watering hole. You can even dine with your child's furry friends. It's Sesame Street Safari of Fun, where imaginations run wild and there's fun for everyone. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| Role-playing <b>games</b> pull reluctant school <b>kids</b> into a supportive crowd Posted: 09 Apr 2010 07:58 AM PDT Belfast, Maine When Max Delaney came to rural Maine 13 years ago, his itinerant family moved from town to town, school to school. With few social connections, he felt isolated. Like an outsider. Skip to next paragraphRelated Stories"It was hard for me to find people," says Mr. Delaney, now 21. "I was searching for a community." His academic performance suffered, and he didn't get along with his teachers. "I did not do well with authority in school." Then, the year his family arrived in Belfast, a coastal town of some 6,300 on Penobscot Bay, he discovered The Game Loft and finally found his tribe. Similar to other youth-development organizations such as Outward Bound or Scouting, The Game Loft also fosters risk-taking, leadership, and camaraderie. But for kids who find the football gridiron to be a foreign world, The Game Loft immerses them in a different sort of team sport. Via table-top role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), Game Loft members play characters armed not with football padding and hockey sticks but chain mail, broadswords, light sabers, and magic spells. Working together, they charge onto battlefields and explore underground dungeons, seeking valor in these imaginary realms. "I took to [role-playing] immediately," Delaney says. He joined as a member of The Game Loft, then started volunteering as a staff member, and finally became an employee. Along the way, the games he played built up his character in the real world. "Killing dragons is a challenge," says Ray Estabrook, The Game Loft's codirector and cofounder. His center connects dragon-slaying to the challenges life throws at you. Via gaming, kids test out "roles," but in a safe, nonschool environment, in order to become functioning adults in society – connected, compassionate, and caring. "Good things happen to kids who game," he says. After opening a game shop, All About Games, in the heart of Belfast in 1996, the husband-and-wife team of Ray and Patricia Estabrook, lifelong gamers, realized their store had become an ad hoc gathering place for youths who wanted to learn and play games. In 1998, they founded their community center in the shop's attic. Twelve years later, the innovative hangout – and the only gaming-focused youth center in the country – is going strong, changing the lives of individuals like Delaney. "I was [at The Game Loft] to socialize with kids who had mutual interest not only in games but conversation," Delaney says. "It was a place to channel a lot of curiosity." Moreover, he was able to interact with kids of all ages, as well as adults, who treated him as an equal. "The level of respect we got at The Game Loft was different than [at] school." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| <b>Games</b> give <b>kids</b> a taste of real life Posted: 09 Apr 2010 07:45 AM PDT My adolescent sons had a friend over the other day. While I was getting their dinner, I overheard them in the living room all adither over political unrest. "The whole world is just so weak," one said. "It's ready to collapse," said another. "We need better strategies." Apparently concerned with a number of vulnerable attack points in Asia, my sons' friend, Ben, had developed a political alliance with Tyler. Yet he didn't want to jeopardize his tenuous relationship with Jonah as he attempted to defend his acquisition of Australia by heavily fortifying Siam and Indonesia. My mental response went something like this: "Huh?" Trying not to seem doltish, I asked if they'd like me to buzz Hillary Clinton for a diplomatic intervention. Ben said he is not all that impressed with her management of the situation in Iraq, so no thanks. Besides, they were just playing the board game "Risk." The boys' spirited banter stirred in me a torrent of memories from my own childhood. I spent countless hours on the living room floor with friends, cousins and siblings playing board games. I relished the thrill of sleuthing for Col. Mustard with the lead pipe in the billiard room, or of seeing an opponent get sent directly to jail without collecting $200 or passing go. I remember the Christmas my sister got "The Game of Life." I was enamored by its plastic hills and buildings and its whizzing spinner. And, oh, those cars, with teensy holes for little pink and blue peg children. I was too young at the time to really play the game, but I'd sit and watch my older siblings chart courses as doctors and artists and eventually roll into retirement. When they finally tired of "Life," my brother Jay and I — the youngest two of five — would jump in for a chance to wrangle with the icons of adulthood. Just as "Risk" promotes a rudimentary consideration of geography and political affairs, some of my favorite games provided a simple entrée to the world of money management. One of my all time favorites was the Parker Brothers game "Pay Day." I remember carefully placing my monthly wages of $325 in thin stacks vertical to the playing board. I felt so pleasingly grown-up as I plodded along the calendar days. Making deals, earning commissions, and paying bills and discarding them in the mail stack satisfied me. I was amused by postcards from my imaginary children at camp, and happy to take a quiet break on Sweet Sunday. When I learned how to figure percentages in school, it gave the game new life. I got to start using that wondrous purple-shaded debit and credit pad I'd seen the older kids clutch, adding 10 percent interest on savings or paying 20 percent on loans. It's never too soon to get kids started thinking about money and using it wisely. It's important for children to consider where dollars come from and where they go. There are plenty of games that open the door to money matters. Some are as basic as teaching the values of coins and bills. Others delve into investment and stockholding. Crown Financial Ministries sells an "ABC Learning Bank" for young children online for about $15. Classics like "Life," "Pay Day" and "Monopoly" sell for $25 or less at toy stores and department stores. The strategic investment game "Acquire" for older children is easy to find online for less than $30. Lesser known money-themed games are sold at educational stores. There are free online money games like "Road Trip to Savings" and "Ed's Bank," and a variety of games at SenseAndDollars.thinkport.org. As for clever quips about Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner … I'm open to suggestions.
Alicia Notarianni is a reporter and feature writer for The Herald-Mail. Her e-mail address is Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. | |
| YMCA Healthy <b>Kids</b> Day’ is April 17 Posted: 10 Apr 2010 12:02 AM PDT Hardyston — The Sussex County YMCA's Healthy Kids Day on Saturday, April 17 will include family swim time and water safety demonstrations, a health expo, cooking demonstrations, summer camp information, a kickball game with community leaders, children's games and giveaways. Healthy Kids Day partners to date are: Branchville Family Chiropractic, Sussex County Cancer Coalition, Hardyston Township First Aid Squad, the Center for Prevention and Counseling, Newton Memorial Hospital, Sussex County Department of Environmental and Public Health Services, NORWESCAP, Sodexo Food Service, St. Claire's Hospital and NJ Rebel.
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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