The Lessons of Monopoly

First day of our vacation, first day of winter, and it also happens to be my husband's birthday. We spent our evening playing a game as a family. It was lots of fun teaching the boys how to play, while listening to some Christmas music in front of the fireplace.
It has been a long time since I played and it was fun. As we played, I realized how many lessons and skills we were teaching.
Reading- they had to read their community chest and chance cards, and the tables on their properties.
Math- multiplication when they landed on utilities, adding and subtracting to find out how much change they were owed, exchanging money values, counting the dice and one to one correspondence moving around the board.
Focusing- Keeping up with your own properties and your turn.
Negotiating- Trading and deciding on fair deals.
Economics terms- Monopoly, trade, taxes, income, rent, mortgage, bank, buy, sell.
Life- You don't always win, you sometimes lose, your attitude about it makes a big difference. And sometimes pausing mid-game for birthday cake helps you feel better about your current situation and happy about being a part of the game.

While teaching my 5th graders about railroads and monopolies, I learned that kids do not have a clue what a monopoly is aside from a game they can play on their electronic device.
After that lesson, I vowed to make sure my kids would know better and was beyond delighted when my boys selected Monopoly as our game for the evening. They learned a lot and we had fun. I didn't remember how much learning is involved, it really is a lot. So I will be ordering a game for my class to teach them how to play. Hopefully they will really grasp what a monopoly is, and how the railroads were pivotal to monopoly owners.
I foresee some more family game nights during my winter break. As a matter of fact, we will be continuing our game tomorrow. Unfortunately my 8 year old is about to bankrupt me because he has a hotel on Boardwalk, and a house on Park Place. I landed on Boardwalk twice, prior to hotel ownership, and my cash supply is low! Going to jail, looks mighty appealing right now! (Never thought I would write that on my blog!)
Hope you are enjoying some quality fun during your break!