Three for Thursday from The Parent’s Play Book
Winning & losing, a bit of a battle, and a home brew
Quick win
Play Rock, Paper, Scissors to get more comfortable with losing
Originating in China over 2,000 years ago – Rock, Paper, Scissors is a brilliant way to help children get more comfortable with losing.
Each round is over in seconds, so any ‘loss’ is quickly followed by another go – far easier to handle than longer games where everything hinges on a single result. And while there is a bit of skill in spotting patterns, wins and losses naturally balance out, so you don’t need to hold back or manufacture victories.
If you want to play it like the pros, the World Rock Paper Scissors Championship uses a best of-three or best-of-five format, with players throwing on “1… 2… 3… shoot”. Who knows, you could be raising a future world champion.
After school activity
Battleships
~15 mins
An absolute classic and all you need is a pen and paper.
How you can try it:
Draw two grids – 10 x 10.
Along the top write 1-10.
Down the side write A-J.
On your separate grids, each secretly place:
an aircraft carrier (5 squares).
a battleship (4 squares).
two destroyers (3 squares).
a submarine (2 squares).
Take turns firing by calling out a coordinate (e.g. B7).
The other player answers:
Miss – nothing there.
Hit – you hit a ship.
Sunk – you’ve hit every part of that ship.
Track your shots on the same grid as your ships, or on a separate grid – whichever you find easier.
First player to sink all the opponent’s ships wins.
Weekend project
Brew potions
~30 mins+
This is one of our favourites but it can get a little messy, so protect the table first. FYI – food colouring goes through newspaper (I probably should have been able to work this out beforehand).
It only takes a few minutes to set up and can spark hours of creative play.
What you need:
Several transparent containers (the more they look like potions bottles the better).
Food colouring.
Optional extras: pebbles, leaves, petals – anything you think might help the magic (this also gives you a great excuse to head outside and forage first).
How you can try it:
Half-fill the containers with water and lay out the ingredients.
Let them start mixing, pouring and experimenting with different colours and textures.
Encourage them to name and think about the effects of their concoctions – love, healing, laughter, protection, invisibility etc.
They might decide to open a full-blown potion shop, or they might just stick to brewing – both are great.
Bonus: try squeezing in a little writing practice by encouraging them to create labels for their potions.
Until next week,
Harvey
Share your creations with us online using #TheParentsPlayBook – we’d love to see them.
Three for Thursday
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