When you have to WAIT!

Today was one of those days when I had to take my children along with me to a doctor's appointment. This, I must say, is one of the drawbacks to being with your children 24/7! When my kids were in school I would simply schedule appointments during those hours. Now, however, is a different story.

Doesn't it always happen to you this way? : You get to the doctor's office and they call you back almost immediately, only to put you in a windowless room with very little air where you then wait for the doctor for at least thirty minutes! That was me this morning, and as I was exhausting ways to keep the children entertained, I decided to figure out a way to do it properly.

I love my iPhone -- so, I just looked up some fun games to keep them busy while we waited. I probably knew these games already, but in the heat of the moment it's really hard to come up with stuff yourself. So, here's what I came up with, and maybe it will help you the next time you have to WAIT with your precious children!

12 Games to Play While You Wait We played "Going on a Picnic" (expect we changed it to "Going on a Trip" since we're going on vacation soon) and this took up a good amount of time.

Verbal Tennis This game is great! It's a little challenging for a five year old, but it was fun trying!

Waiting Games My daughter was teaching her little brother to play Rock, Paper, Scissors. A few people in the waiting room joined in. Fun!

I'm sure there's lots more out there, too. I learned some new games today and I also learned when I'm in a jam, to just GOOGLE it!!

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Scrabble Apple!

I've been on the hunt for some fun word games that our whole family could play together. Personally, I love to play Scrabble (I play it on the iPad very often!) and thought it would be fun to teach the kids to play, as well. As we were shopping at Wal-Mart last week I found the game Scrabble Apple. We started to play this afternoon, and it is the PERFECT game for my eight and five year old.

Basically, you lay all the tiles face down in the "orchard" (good vocab. word!). Each player takes a turn choosing a tile and placing it face up in the playing area. When someone can spell a word they holler it out and bring it over to their side. You can add letters to existing words, or even change letters around to make new words. We didn't get that complicated yet. Three letter words were a good place to start. I was also amazed and what different learners my son and daughter are. My daughter just looks at the tiles and tries to think of words. Right away my son was arranging and rearranging the tiles to make words.

Now, the game itself is excellent, but it ended in tears today because my youngest said "But I wanted to win!". Obviously we need to do more things like this so he can learn that it's ok to lose and most of the fun lies in actually playing the game. I was, however, impressed that he was easily making words.

I am also attending the virtual homeschool conference this week and have downloaded all the audios for the different sessions. There is one in particular - Homeschooling During Times of Crisis - that really interests me. The older I get the more "crisis" situations seems to arise and the more complicated life gets. Homeschooling is a blessing during these times because it gives me something to focus on, but today I was very distracted by a particular situation and had a hard time getting the kids to focus as a result. SO, we layed down after lunch and enjoyed several great books and then played Scrabble Apple. I guess that's good enough for today.