Family games and a science experiment and conundrum

Yesterday afternoon was forecast to be rather wet, so we decided that we would have a family games session.  After quite a bit of disagreement about what we should play, we agreed that we would each write two choices pieces of paper and we'd put them in a hat and whatever was pulled out we would play if we wanted to or sit out, but not grump about it.  So we played a dinosaur game of M's, then whist (or as M says wisp) which was new to the girls, The Game of Life Adventures Edition board game, The Game of Life card game, Cluedo and finally Top Trumps Team GB. 

It went down so well yesterday that both girls asked this morning if we could have a 'family games day'!  So we did a the same (but with a different hat), starting off with Pairs in Pears (well K and I did), we experimented with giving K a head start and agreed that 2 minutes was about right, as we each won once then.

K & I playing Pairs in Pears

Next out of the hat was what we call 'the Postman Pat game', which is supposed to be a competitive one, but which M prefers to turn into a co-operative one, delivering all the letters as quickly as possible instead of the 3 you start off with and returning to the post office.

 



This was followed by a game of Travel the World, which was very close between K & M and I trailed in a distant 3rd.

Then what was supposed to be a quick break for lunch turned into a science lesson.  I told K & M that I had subscribed to The Happy Scientist website which they weren't particularly interested in, but when I started having a look at the site, we were rather grabbed by the Water in a Glass videos and ended up trying them out for ourselves. 

An upside-down glass full of water

The force of gravity on the water in the glass is considerably less than that of air pressure acting upwards on the card.


An upside-down glass half full of water

The air pressure in the glass plus the force of gravity on the water is more than that of air pressure acting upwards on the card.  However the water pushes down on the card that it bows enough that the air pressure in the glass is lowered such that the air pressure in the glass and the gravity acting on the water is not greater than the air pressure acting upwards on the card.

This led to a follow up question - if you do the experiment with half a glass of water and a completely rigid material over the top of the glass - what would happen?  We tried a cd case, but that had a bit of give in it, so didn't answer our question.

Back to games and I taught them Cheat, but M got very upset at ending up with lots of cards and K didn't say much at all, so we scrapped that and had another go at The Game of Life Card game.

K playing Cheat!

 Finally we played a card game that a friend had given us months and months ago, that she and her family really enjoy, but we hadn't got round to trying:  Phase 10.

There were some ups and downs (M tends to get very emotional with these things), but the overall verdict from K & M was that they LOVE it!