Go Fish

Age Range: 2+ years (the big requirement is to recognize numbers 1-10)

Materials: Deck of cards, preferably one made for kids

Activity:

• Shuffle deck, deal cards one at a time to each player until each has 5 cards
• Place the rest of the deck face down in the center
• You (player 1) ask your child "Can I have a five?" (or whatever other card you are holding)Your child (player 2) responds with either "yes" and hands over the card if he/she has it or "No, Go fish!" if he/she does not have it.
• If you are told to "Go fish" you must draw the top card from the stack. If the drawn card matches three cards of a value you already hold, you can lay down the four cards and continue. Otherwise it's player 2's turn.

*A variation we do of the game that makes things easier for a 2 year old to play is we only require two cards of the same kind to lay them down as a matched set. This allows the game to move a bit faster at first and encourages simple matching of like numbers.

*We also kept our cards and Tobias' cards visible for the first 2 games until he understood how to play. Then we started hiding our cards but kept his cards visible so we could help him. Once he gets a bit better he can hide his cards as well and we'll play as normal.

• The first player to lay down all his cards in matched sets wins!
  

-please ignore the crazy outfit, Daddy dressed him this morning :)

Skills:

• matching
• number recognition
• taking turns
• care of objects (they have to be careful not to bend the cards while playing)