Review: Let’s Play!

November 14, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

If you or your kids have ever wondered about the kinds of games kids play in other parts of the world, you’ll enjoy reading and playing through Let’s Play: Children’s Games from Around the World. This book by Nancy Dickmann and illustrated by Mónica Andino explores games from different countries that can be played alone, with two players, three to five players or larger groups.

Each game takes up a page and includes the name of the game, where it comes from, how many players are needed, any supplies that are needed, what type of game it is (active play, creative play, throwing, puzzle, board game, etc.) and how much space you need to play. This is handy if you have friends over at home or you’re looking for games the whole classroom can play, or even something to keep one child entertained.

There’s then a description of how the game works and sometimes more information about the name or different ways to play.

The games come from all over the world including the United States and the United Kingdom, Australia, Columbia, Ghana, India, Japan, Liberia and Turkey to name a few. There are also a couple of games from indigenous American tribes. There’s an index that lists all the nations represented so if you’re doing a unit study on a particular country you can look and see if there’s a game from the country you can play.

Let’s Play would be a fun book to have in the classroom for younger kids or at home if you regularly have kids over who are looking for something fun to do. Most of the games don’t require much in terms of materials or preparation, and they give kids a glimpse into how kids like them in other parts of the world have fun.

About the book: 64 pages, hardcover. Published 2023 by words & pictures. Suggested retail price $16.99.

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Celebrate Inventor’s Day by Learning about Inventors

Several countries have a day set aside to honor and recognize their inventors, but Nov. 9 is a special one that’s known as Tag der Erfinder in German. It’s celebrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and it falls on Nov. 9 because that’s the birthday of Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr is widely known as an actress but there’s a lot more to her story. You can get a little of it geared to little kids in the Little People, Big Dreams book Hedy Lamarr (32 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by Frances Lincoln Childrens Books, suggested retail price $15.99).

The book explores her birth in Austria and how she spent time when she was young coming up with inventions. She became an actress, married an arms dealer, made her escape to America and became an actress again.

But she also helped develop a frequency-hopping signal device for airplanes that was used by the Americans and their allies during World War II. That technology became the basis for wireless technology such as wifi and GPS.

While Inventor’s Day is a great time to learn about Hedy Lamarr, you can take this opportunity to check out books and do little studies on lots of different inventors. If there’s an inventor or an invention your child is particularly interested in, that’s a great place to start. It’s fun to think about all the things we use every day that didn’t always exist; someone had to invent them!

For a start here at Craft Gossip you can learn more about Garrett Morgan, who invented traffic lights; Maria Oroso, who developed a clay oven that could cook food without electricity; and more female inventors and scientists.

And for more general inventors’ fun, check out this inventors word search from Fun Findery (and another from Let’s Do Puzzles) or take a quiz on inventors and their inventions from Flanders Family Home Life.

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