"Pin The Tail on The Donkey" Genre of Homemade Games

Way back in the middle of the previous century, when I was a kid, "Pin The Tail on The Donkey" was a standard party game. My mother bought us some for my kids and their friends to play, too. It was a regular feature in the birthday parties I organized along with unattractive and unfashionably "healthy" birthday cakes.

As a savta, grandma, I reprised the genre as our traditional Family Chanuka Party Game by taking a large piece of oak-tag and drawing a chanukiya Chanuka Menorah sans candles or flames. Then I'd cut out candles/flames, and get the whole family to join in playing a version of "Pin The Tail on The Donkey."

Recently my daughter created a new version of the famous classic "Pin The Tail on The Donkey" for a birthday by drawing a birthday cake with candles sans flames. I cut out flames, and the children, blindfolded of course, had to try to stick the flame on the candles.

For some strange reason, most likely the result of the "Children Shouldn't Feel Like Failures" culture, instead of laughing at badly placed flames, they coached each other:

"A bit higher"
"To the right"
"To the left"
"Lower"
"That's perfect"

The kids had fun, but they didn't learn to plan and calculate in the dark to develop survival skills, which is the real purpose of the game.

You can take the basic idea and make up a game for children, teens or adults. It could be a lot of fun and very low tech, too.

המבוך הקסום Labyrinth, "Magic Maze," Playing Games

After my friends and I had our little "road trip" admiring the local vineyards, we continued "partying" and decided to play a board game. In Hebrew it's called המבוך הקסוםHaMevoch HaKassum , which which would be translated as the Magic Maze or "Labyrinth," as it's officially called in English.

Most of us had not only never played it before, but we hadn't even heard of it. Our hostess once started playing it but her grandchildren decided to quit before anyone had won. So, it was new and a challenge for all of us.

You need strategy, luck and quick thinking. I wonder if it's like coaching and/or playing football.

Yes, we did have fun!

Teaching: Turned a Game into a Graded Quiz

 OK, I must admit that in my 9th grade group, only three students show up, but they are a nice enthusiastic three. I teach EFL, that's English as a Foreign Language, and I teach to very weak students. I had to teach them how to read when I began with them at the very end of October. I have a simple method, and it seems to have worked.

One of them knows English from home, but that just means that he understands the spoken word and can reply in kind. The other two are pretty new to the language.

They get four hours a week divided into three days, which means that there's a double lesson on one of the days. And, davka, that double lesson is at the end of the day when they are just too tired to stay attuned to what I'm trying to do. And the school doesn't let me do what I did in my other one, when I could combine the lessons without a break and finish earlier. When I complained, I was told to "play games."

Nu? I'm not the game sort of teacher. These students are so weak that they spend an entire lesson on a simple quiz which shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes. So the game time has replaced quizzes. In a sense they are quizzes, since I get them to translate words, and they compete to see how many words they've done by saving the little pieces of paper on which the words are written and then counting them at the end.

Yesterday I made a new version in which the two who didn't understand English could work together. There were thirty words. I told them if neither new the definition I would take three points off, from one hundred, and the remainder would be their grades. And for the English speaker, I told him that if he shouted out an answer when not his turn I'd take off three points per word. They all accepted the rules, and in the end the weaker students got a nice high 94%, and the English-speaker got 97%. And I was able to register additional grades for them.

If You're Still Looking For A Good Chanukah Game

Try

PIN THE CANDLE ON THE CHANUKIYAH!

The kids had great fun playing it.  We had prepared candles for everyone, yes, including all of the adults, but the kids were happy to share them and light/stick the candles on for all of us.

Admittedly, I'm not that great at arts & crafts and not everyone could guess what that poster was for, but once the kids started the game, it didn't matter.  The older grandchildren remembered it from previous years and the younger ones caught on quickly.  I had the children decorate the "candles" and write everyone's name, one on each.

Chanukah isn't over yet, so you can still play!

Enjoy!!!!