December 25th - Christmas Night

We were planning on going to my parent's house on Christmas night for Christmas dinner, but my kids were so sick. So my mom graciously packed up dinner and brought it to our house. They also brought gifts for our family. 

Every year my mom gives Christian a nutcracker. He loves growing his collection. And this year she gave him baseball bases and the best DS game ever (more about that in a minute). McKenna loved her new Barbie car that she can park in the garage of her doll house. And her favorite gift was a CD player with 2 microphones and some music CDs. She and Christian have been having the best time carrying that thing around the house singing at the top of their lungs.

Okay, back to the DS game. If your kid (boy or girl) has a DS...listen up! 

First of all, I have a confession to make: Over Christian break I didn't make Christian read one book. Not one. And the packet of practice work his teacher sent home to work on over break got lost somewhere and we didn't do it. Ahhh...that is so not like me AT ALL!! But you know, people were throwing up and I barely slept and there were fevers and lots of other great excuses.

So when Christian went back to school and all the sudden moved up a reading group I was a little mystified until I remember this game. 

He loves this game. He spent hours playing this game. Yup hours. Like hours and hours, remember all the excuses I listed above....well that's also why he got to sit around and play video games for hours :) Anyway, this game is an interactive game where you have to help the little boy, Maxwell, complete challenges and you help Maxwell by adding your own ideas to the game. If you write the word "hammer" all the sudden Maxwell will have a hammer that he can use. Or if you write the word "snowmobile" Maxwell can then ride on a snowmobile over a snow covered mountain. So the entire game is based on the fact that you can spell words. So Christian was using his "stretch spelling" to try and sound out words that he wanted to use and whenever he would write a word it would come to life on the screen. And if he didn't spell it perfectly the game would give him a list of words to choose from that sound like the word he was trying to spell. It's a pretty amazing game and Christian was having such a good time he had no idea that he was practicing spelling and reading while he was playing. This game doesn't challenge your "video gaming skills" it challenges your creativity, imagination and reading/writing skills. And the best part is that it's one of Christian's favorite games. So check out ScribbleNauts if you got a little DSer in your house!