Monopoly

Sag and I started a game of Star Wars The Clone Wars Monopoly last night.  

I like these themed boards.  They make a game that I have never found that interesting much more interesting.  I picked up this board last year at T. J. Maxx.  Little did I know at the time that I was doing myself a favor :-)  

Monopoly came into our family life relatively early.  Money has been a passion of Gem's since he was quite little.  He received Monopoly Jr. for a birthday or Christmas gift when he was six, I think.

Sag and I are in day 2 of our play.  It has been interesting watching him work out the math to buy properties, bid for auctioned properties, make change for rent, etc.  He is not a mental math kind of kid by nature (yet...this may be something that evolves later for him).  He is experiencing first hand the dissonance that comes with not having math facts memorized.  It's impractical if you want to be able to play Monopoly without breaking up the flow of the game (among other things).

Playing with him is a good opportunity for me to observe his mathiness, think of activities and mini-lessons to work on with him to help him build his skills, and also, to nudge him to more clearly understand what he wants to learn and why.