Your kids gain valuable life skills through board games, and enrich themselves through outdoor play.
Full-day programs aimed at homeschooled kids (but open to all kids) in January and February 2019.
Solve a mystery.
Build an empire.
Work together to solve an intriguing puzzle.
Create a story.
Live an adventure.
Through modern board games, kids aged 7-12 are immersed in new worlds together, and through both co-operation and competition, learn valuable life skills.
Indoor games are punctuated with outdoor winter hikes and physical activity for an overall balance to the day.
Plus, since it’s aimed at homeschooled kids, you get some much-needed time either with your own younger kids, or time for your self!
Programs from 8am-4pm on Fridays in 2020: January 3, 17, 31, February 14, 28.
$40 per session per child. Because this is a child care program, there is no HST.
Younger siblings and adults: Contact us by email or phone 519-762-3398 (land line) to discuss attending with your kids or bringing younger siblings, which would include a mandatory parent or guardian attending.
Unplug your kids from technology,
and plug them into collaborative and enriching play.
Life Skills from Board Games
- Logic and Strategy
- Focus and Attention
- Patience and Sportsmanship
- Collaboration
- Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
- Resource Management
- Creative Thinking
- Negotiation and Communication
Featured Games
Carcassonne
In this classic tile placement game, players build cities, roads, and farms by taking turns putting down tiles representing a medieval town. Fast to learn, but with endless possibilities.
Museum
This lavishly illustrated game is a set collection game in which players work to have the most impressive museum collection. Cards feature information about all the real museum pieces that inspire the game.
Takenoko
The emperor of China has given a panda as a gift to the Japanese imperial court – but how will they feed this ravenous beast? Players place tiles to try and keep the panda happy, and therefore get the emperor’s favour at the end of the game.
Shadows over Camelot
An outstanding cooperative game, in which sometimes one player is secretly a traitor trying to sabotage the others! The legends about King Arthur are the theme, and gameplay ranges from working together to protect Camelot, to going on solo quests to gain other advantages.
The list below encompasses some of the best games in our collection:
Agricola
Call to Adventure
Carcassonne
Costa Rica
Dixit
Dominion
Evolution
Forbidden Island
Junk Art
Magic: The Gathering
The Mind
Museum
Mysterium
Mystery of the Abbey
Near and Far
Santorini
Settlers of Catan
Shadows Over Camelot
Splendor
Star Wars: Imperial Assault
Takenoko
Ticket to Ride
Tsuro
Wingspan
Details:
Kids bring their own lunches and snacks for this all-day program. Warm outdoor clothes, including snow pants, and winter boots are very important. We’ll be outside for part of the time, no matter the weather.
We actively choose games that are highly desirable for kids to play, with beautiful artwork, engaging gameplay. Occasionally these have ‘combat’ between players, but we typically avoid violence and warfare themes. Many of the games are cooperative, and all of them will develop skills such as those listed above. Kids will have close mentoring when they are first learning a game, and adults will always be on hand to referee any disputes, and give strategic advise. The atmosphere of competition will always be one of encouraging good sportsmanship, and enjoying the experience of playing, as opposed to winning at all costs. At the same time, ideas about improving gameplay will be offered, to help young gamers hone their developing skills.
If you show your kids the list of games, they are probably going to beg to come, and if they come more than once, they can learn more games, or play favourites again and again!
Email if you have questions or specific needs.
Leaders
Rob is a home-schooling dad, writer, and permaculturalist. He has had a long-standing interest in board games. This interest was rekindled in the early 2000s, when European boardgames started to get translated into English editions. Now that his kids are getting to be the right age for more board games, he has devoted hours to researching the renaissance currently going on in modern board games, and building a collection to play and teach to children and adults.
For over a decade, he has also been researching and trying various homesteading techniques. From growing vegetables and fruit trees to raising poultry, to inventing and making time-honoured fermented foods, a great deal of Rob’s time goes into both improving the design of Willow Creek Farm, and finding efficient ways to manage it. Rob imports rare and unusual fruit and nuts trees each spring. He is a co-founder of the Carolinian Canada Forest Garden Guild (currently inactive), and as part of that, co-organized two very successful Forest Garden Convergences in 2015 and 2016. Rob has published numerous small-press publications, as well as O Spam, Poams (2005), a book of poetry based on spam emails. He is currently at work on a young adult science fiction novel called Sacred Cows, which imagines a future world where it is illegal for people to grow their own food.
Julie Walter is an educator, artist, blogger and social thinker. Her interest in board games runs back to her childhood, and though she doesn’t research games as much as Rob, she can consistently win against him at most competitive games!
She is particularly interested in bringing the elements of Permaculture together with social systems, particularly within the realms of parenting and education. She writes a blog entitled Family Yields where she explores what personal growth looks like through the lens of our family systems. Her passion is in identifying patterns within systems and finding ways to push the edges of their limits to create incrementally small but lasting changes. She currently works part-time teaching Gifted students for the local school board. Last year she taught a pilot Forest School program within the school board. Her strength as an educator is in bringing big concepts to life through hands-on and practical application of learning. She also enjoys creating a variety of art, allowing her to apply her degree in Visual Arts. Julie particularly enjoys natural building; working in cob and cordwood. Julie loves people, nature and making connections.