We went to dinner at my father-in-law's house over the weekend. A friend of his who was also at dinner brought each of my children a little present. My son received marbles. My children had NO IDEA what the game of marbles was or how to play! Well, throughout the evening a few of the adults there sat with them and taught them how to play, and they have been playing ever since. Best news: a set of marbles is just $1 at the dollar store. So, get some marbles before Thanksgiving and bone up on the rules of the game and I bet lots of people in your home will have a good time! OR, put a sack of marbles in your child's Christmas stocking!
A word of caution: if your children wind up playing, play for "fair" instead of for "keepsies". This means that the players each leave the game with their own marbles, instead of keeping the marbles they won from the other player forever. Now, if your kids decide to play for keepsies, that's great, but my five year old was having a hard time with that concept, so I declared fair marble play only at our house!
Here are a few resources we used to learn to play marbles:
- Learn everything you need to know at The Land of Marbles
- Lots of rules, history, and fun stuff at Oh, Marbles!
- The Moon Marble Company - I just had fun looking at all the marbles and thinking about adding to our collection.
- This video from YouTube is great! I just had my kids watch it and they pretty much took it from there!
Marbles is just one of those games that kids don't learn to play anymore. Give your kids the gift of their imaginations with this classic game!
This post is linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop - check out what other homeschoolers are up to this week! It is also linked to Teach Me Tuesday over at A Bokros Kind of Life... go there to see ideas from other homeschoolers!
