Thursday, June 10, 2010

Change your Dinner Routine

Sometimes, especially when Brian is out of town, by dinner time my brain is a little fuzzy. But sitting down to a family dinner to share that time together is one of my highest priorities. So now, I cheat! While I might not be able to come up with an original thought to save my life, I can read.

I picked up the chat pack at a local homeschool store, but you can find them here. Each card inside contains a quirky question. They have several different versions available.

The Dinner Games I picked up at Borders. The games are easy to play at the table. When I brought it home, Brian was envisioning the children wrestling on the table as our dinner game. Thank goodness it is nothing like that. Our favorite game so far has been the "guess what is missing from the table" game. One person shuts their eyes while everyone conspires and removes one item from the table. Then the laughter ensues.

We use them all the time now. The kids ask us to pack them up and bring them with us when we go out, that is the best ringing endorsement evah!

12 comments:

Rachel said...

That sounds like a ton of fun! Great way to encourage interaction!

Kellye said...

What a great idea! I'll definitely have to try that out since our dinners consist of much the same: Me trying to form a coherent thought so we actually do have some quality time together instead of me shouting to please don't put your feet on the table AGAIN!

Nice to meet you and I look forward to reading over your blog! I'm Kellye visiting via the Mom Loop! Have a great day!

Adry said...

This sounds like so much fun! Is it very distracting from actually eating though? My son is still a bit young for this I think, but I love interactive/fun dinner time. I just don't want the evening meal to stretch on forever! :-)

Momma Chick said...

So going to have to incorporate that into our dinner routine! Lately it is has been a let's see how fast we can finish type of game.

Liz said...

What a great idea! What ages does that start at? My little one is definitely too young, but my oldest is 4.5. Stopping by from Mom Loop!

Jennifer said...

My youngest is 5. He does fine answering the questions. For example, the other night the question was "If you could build a building out of any natural material, what would you use?"

My son's answer "bacon".

It was silly, but the boy loves his bacon. And it gave us a chance to laugh at the smell that would make in the hot texas sun.

Jennifer said...

@ Adry

We have had the opposite reaction, it seems to keep everyone focused. No one tries to wander away from the table, and it relaxes the atmosphere. I haven't noticed that anyone takes any longer to eat than normal. Now, I have three kids, so we go around the table answering the questions, so they have the answers of four other people to "chew through".

Rieshy said...

I've never heard of dinner games- unless laughing until milk comes out of you nose counts.

I'll have to look for this- it would be less messy:)

Unknown said...

We have dinner together every night and I think this is wonerful and will look for it

Unknown said...

I love the idea of building communication and interacting at the dinner table. This looks like fun.

Stopping from Mom Loop.

Laura Lynn said...

Awesome idea! Sounds like fun.

Thanks for stopping by!
The stripes in the bedroom were not hard to do. I am embarrassed on how not scientifc or without precise mathematics I did it. Usually you're supposed to measure - I just eyeball it!

I like color too but I admit, I keep the background neutral and bring in color everywhere else. The kids' rooms are colorful though!

Hen Jen said...

that sounds like fun, I will have to look for these!