Love Flunkey

Here's a new game for my wordy pals:

Word Chess

Start with a word. 

Change, add or subtract one letter to make a new word:

LOVE  

LONE

Keep changing one letter at a time 

until you can't make a new word. 

It's like CHESS, only without the chivalrous little guys you move around.

This is a fun solo game, but it is also fantastic with a partner. 

See who gets checkmated first!

Here's how I get from LOVE to FLUNKEY:

LOVE

LONE

LONG

LUNG

LUNGE

LUNGED

LUGGED

PLUGGED

PLUNGED

PLUNKED

FLUNKED

FLUNKEY

Play it:

*Can you make more words from FLUNKEY, 

changing, adding or subtracting one letter at a time, 

without repeating any of the previous words?

Tin Man, by Pip

Word Chess, Gauntlet Style 

Using the same rules, 

try to turn one word into a very different one. 

Here's CAT to DOG, one letter at a time:

CAT

COT

DOT

DOG

Play it:

* Can you turn HEART into BREAK?

* Can you get LOVE to EVOLVE? 

Book Crimes and Free Gorillas

 I went to jail last night.

The warden's words:

"It's a book crime. 

Didn't you read the fine print 

when you signed up for your library card?

Accumulate too many overdue books, 

we lock you up." 

I woke up feverish, 

confessed all to my amused hubby, 

who reassured me it was all a dream, 

and the police have more important things 

to worry about than avid readers.  

It must have been my subconscious brewing. 

I've been dealing with escaped zoo animals lately. 

These are my Goodnight Gorilla Nesting Puppets.

Our nesting dolls were such a hit 

that I tried some for the birthday boy 

based on one of his top books:

Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. 

I sketched some simple animals inspired from the book, 

trying for an arched stacking shape.

The bases are of sturdy felt.

Fabric scraps are cut to mimic the sketches:

(a soft gray flannel face for gorilla, 

patterned triangular pieces for armadillo's armor, 

green grass to contrast elephant's limbs).  

I top-stitched the big pieces, added touches
(fringed scraps for giraffe's and lion's mane and tail,
flannel patches for giraffe, mouse's stickie-outie ears, hyena's spotty pattern)

and embroidered faces.

Then, with right sides facing each other, tails and ears tucked in,
I sewed them together, turned them right side out

and pop! 

Standing, stacking puppets. 

My mom suggested I tie the banana to the mouse. 

Genius!

The result? A slew of escaped zoo animals that stack from small to big.

My little gorilla is thrilled.

Play With Words, Not Matches

Still searching for a few minutes to burrow away and write,
I set up two games for today's quiet time.


Here is Mixed Up Many:

We drew pictures of people,

cut each paper into tops, 

middles and bottoms,

punched holes 

and snapped them together 

with binder rings

on cardboard. 

Voila! 

To my writing friends:  


Surely this is a plot recipe
just drooling to be used.

Scribble story bones onto paper,
clip into rings,
mix till ready,
serve!

The next game is Play With Words, Not Matches:

This is great for rainy days 

and Mama-is-desperate-to-write moments.

I hunted through the house 

for treasures,

scooped everything into a basket,

then wrote each word on 

recycled art cards. 

 

  

The girls had to draw a card, read the word 

and tape it to its match.

Their favorite part: the tape. 

So simple, yet so entertaining!

For my writer and artist friends:

This can be converted to Kim's Game,
from Rudyard Kipling's Kim.

Have someone fill a tray or basket with dissimilar treasures.
(My kid "helpers" do this for me all day long without being asked.)

Study the tray for twenty seconds, then whisk it away.
Try to remember each thing and its placement on the tray.
This is great for sharpening your detail memory.

They're now playing dollhouse with the boots.

And my writing moments?
I had so much fun playing games
I forgot to write.

Why Children Are Not Nesting Dolls

I made matryoshka dolls for our Christmas babies

from fabric scraps. 

Pip loved them so much she asked Santa for a "katroomshka" doll too. 

Here's the first lady. She's self-contained and proud of it, until...

Surprise!

Out pops another lady!

More!

my happy niece with her doll!

A word to the wise:

dolls are much easier to photograph than children.

Dolls sit still

keep sweet smiles on their faces,

don't suddenly get hold of all the cutlery

and play "Little Drummer Boy" on the baby.

Yep.  

Happy holidays!

May your new year be filled with joy 

and peace. lots of it!

Word Party

We had a party this week to celebrate words and reading.

Sugar Snack helped me get ready while the girls were at school.

Pumpkin Gingersnap Cookies cut into "sight words" = Yum!

He can't read yet, but he knows tasty cookies.

I drew pictures of things we'd have at a party,

labeled them along with some random descriptive words,

cut them out

and put them on the table in a big bowl.

We took turns choosing from the bowl and sounding out words.

Once read, we decided where our words belonged:

food and party fare ("cup", "cookie," "bread")

decorated our plates,

descriptive words like "red" and "shiny"

fancied up our paper crowns

and a few unwanted words like "grouchy" and "tired"

ended up on noses and chairs.

After a delightful afternoon filled

with games, tea and word cookies,

the verdict was in:

"This was the best day ever! Can we have a word party every day?"

Word Therapy for Time-Crunched Writers

If writing life is a garden, mine is in winter.

I love this glorious season;

but with twins in kindergarten, a babe in arms

and a toddler in everything else

- including water and bags of pancake mix simultaneously -

available writing hours are slim to none.

Why fight it?

I'm a writer; I don't want to be a frustrated writer,

so I'm turning my daily adventures into word therapy.

It's a lot like writing, only without the pen or computer.

Some might call it "thinking,"

only it's more purposeful than that.

How do you feed your hungry inner writer and artist?

Lunch!

Read.

Read to kids, read to your partner, read to yourself. Reading is research.

Compare books, outline favorite plots, take notes on what works and doesn't work.

Play word games.

Play with rhyme, rhythm, pacing, pig latin, word patterns, alliterations, Cockney rhyming slang.

Observe. Question. Listen.

Be Sherlock Holmes, focusing on minute details in speech, expression, landscape, emotion.

Play- at kid level.

Celebrate word and art in the commonplace.

This one is so fun for me that I'll visit it in later posts.

Box City

Box Castle

Here's to getting our brain-dirt nice and loamy so that when we plunk down our story seeds, they'll shoot up into brilliant oaks of word!