Following your child's passion is a perk of homsechooling. Yes, all parents can support their child's interests (soccer, drama, piano, dance, etc.) but with more time available to us now, I feel it's even more important to pour energy into areas for which they are enthusiastic. Both kids are into Minecraft, a sandbox computer construction game. It is a great arena for creativity and teamwork, but also a time suck. So if you don't want to lose your children to this game, don't investigate. However, if your child is already into computers and these kinds of games, it's actually a really cool one.
So, in trying to support their interests, we decided to make our own Monopoly board game for Minecraft. Sounds more like fun than school work, right? To make this game, the kids had to research of both games, write a lot of descriptions for card and come up with creative ideas for the instructional cards. It turned out to be a lot of work, but we also had a lot of fun! We looked into making Shrinky Dinks with plastic #6, but found that clear plastic #6 is harder to find than we thought. So we went to the local toy store and purchased blank Shrinky Dink sheets to make our moveable game pieces.
Who's doing the project anyway?
Well, I really tried to allow the kids to do as much of the project as possible. But my control issues got in the way. I wanted the game board to be flat, no bubbles under the plastic protection sheets. I wanted everything to be typed neatly, not written. I wanted the cards to be cut in straight lines. The list goes on. So, I did end up doing a lot of the execution. In the end, I'm trying to see this as a lesson for *me* to remember that I need to step back and allow the kids to do more of the work. This is not a forum for me to show off my ow artistic skills. I am finding that I am continually figuring out where my influence needs to end and my kids involvement begins. When to push, when to help and when to back off completely.
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