Garden and Nature Family Games for Gift Giving!
Robin Schachat
While pulling together my thoughts for children’s holiday gift books for last month’s newsletter, I had an inspiration! Just as there is a burgeoning category of children’s home activity books involving nature and gardens, there must also be a burgeoning category of games for kids and families to enjoy together. So I looked – and I was right! Trust me to be just behind the curve….Anyway, here are a select few games that you, your kids, or your grandchildren might enjoy during Covid-limited winter days.
Photosynthesis, from Blue Orange Board Games, is a board game for kids 8 and over and/or adults, so an excellent choice for a family game night with all mixed ages. It’s a strategy game that allows each player to build a forest, planning which trees to plant and how to determine the ways prior plantings will affect future ones – can these trees grow together? Will this one shade out that one? A little biology, a little more botany, and a strategic means of outwitting your parents and siblings!
Also using strategy to build a substantial collection is the card game Arboretum from Renegade Game Studios. It’s a very peculiar spin on Rummy, in my opinion, at the end of which each player will have curated an arboretum collection, and points are awarded based on color relationships. The player with the most points accumulated in different color groups wins. It is also listed as for players over 8 years old, who will (we hope) learn something about the 80 tree species included as they play.
This next one is for players aged 10 and up, and definitely will result in the players developing an interest in special natural places: Trekking the National Parks, winner of both Mensa and Parents Choice Awards. Geography lessons underlie this one, as trekkers traverse America’s National Parks (yes, Cuyahoga Valley NP is included!) and collect stories, memories, and “trails stones” as they reach each one. Even if the family cannot travel right now to a national park, this game may inspire future trips.
Herbaceous, from Whatz Games, is another card collection game that engages players 8 and up in a fast-paced race to make the best-collected herb garden. It’s just another rummy game, but the artwork is lovely and the plant species are explained clearly, so players will learn and remember when they encounter these herbs in their food, soaps, and perhaps even perfumes in the future. Who knows – young players may become tempted to try eating the herbs?
For gamesters in their teens and adulthood, I found Ecosystem from Genius Games. Players each build a distinct ecosystems, based on environment, habitat, insects, and animals, to create a grid of cards (Shall I keep the bumblebee or pass it? Can I find a grizzly bear?) that comes together as a coherent ecosystem. Biodiversity and compatibility are the goals in each ecosystem – but make sure yours is ready before one of your opponents has created a better one! This looks like a great teaching tool.
Cottage Garden (Stronghold Games) is a very attractive board game based to some extent on Patchwork. Each player creates a cottage garden of his or her own while traversing the board, encountering assistance from a variety of garden cats. As the player moves his/her wheelbarrow forward, he/she gathers different plants, pots, etc, from the central garden market and returns them to his/her plot to assemble one attractive garden, and then embarks on creating new gardens as the game goes on until the gardens run out. Points are assessed according to design and diversity of each garden.
My final selections are based on the scavenger hunts we all played as kids. These are gofindit and gofindit Too, developed by Sensory Trust. These are billed as “outdoor nature treasure hunt card games for families,” and you can use them as simple conversation starters for tiny toddlers or serious contests for teens – or yourself. Cards will lead you to consider what you encounter as you wander in your yard (neighborhood, park, wherever) that is fragrant, or squiggly, or round, or dirty (no fair saying “dirt”), or whatever your card calls for. Of course you can always make your own versions of the card deck if you choose.
Years ago my friend Jacqi and I planned her son’s tenth birthday party in a state park in Maryland. Each boy was given a list of suggestions to find, and was given a kit including a magnifying glass, collections bags, a notebook and colored pencils, a pair of binoculars (yes, they did have to return those at the end), a tape measure, a whistle, and a few other doo-dads. Maybe your children or grandchildren could use a nature exploration kit for a holiday gift? Just a thought…