Going Fishing with Munchkin

For Xmas, Munchkin got a Leapfrog My Card Games game. Finally, she opened up the box, today, and Princess and I played a game of Go Fish with her before Princess had to leave for work.

The set comes with four card holders, that make it easier for children to hold multiple cards in their hands. And, considering the size of the cards, it makes it easier for adults, too. The Go Fish game uses the alphabet, along with an object that begins with that letter. Munchkin's been doing pretty well with sounding her letters, but games like this help her quite a bit with that. The mixture of fun and learning seems to work best for her.

Anyway, by the second hand, Munchkin was saying, "Go Fish is my favorite game!" Of course, she was also saying it as she'd taken one of my cards, and laid down a pair.

Munchkin already knows all of her letters by sight, can write quite a few of them, and can write her name. So, this was more about teaching her how the letters sound, and the basics of card playing. The biggest thing was getting her to realize why she shouldn't let me see her cards, and why she shouldn't tell me what the letter (or object) is on every card she picked up. She picked that up, fairly quickly, and was doing pretty good.

She also discovered something else, quite a bit quicker than I expected. Apparently, she'd figured out that she shouldn't allow me to see her cards, because I caught her trying to get a peek at mine... Twice! Of course, I had to scold her for doing so, and explain to her why it was wrong. However, the way she did it made it difficult. She had leaned forward to pick up a card from the Pond, and tried to lean over the top of my hand to look at my cards. So, as I was scolding her, I was also trying, very hard, not to laugh (and even almost successfully).

After she picked up on how the game worked, she became very good at it. She's always loved matching games, and she's shown herself to have a pretty good memory for someone who can't listen to me for more than a half second. So, once she'd figured out that she needed to remember what cards I'd asked for, she started doing much better. At one point, she took four of my cards in a freaking row (the rules for the Leapfrog version say that if you take a card from your opponent, you get another turn to try again).

What was the final score between me an her? Me: 2, Munchkin: 4. Next, I'm going to teach her Blackjack and Texas Hold'em. Although, we're only going to be playing with Monopoly money.