Candy Land (Akabane GEOS B4 Paper Remix)
Dec. 15th, 2007 12:48 amBehold another example of my amazing ability to make super-cool things for super-cheap.
Today, I had to teach a children's lesson of basically "What color is yours? Mine is blue." I realized that just flashing color cards wasn't going to be much fun and I didn't really want to do color relay races, so I thought to myself: what's a good color game for kids? The answer came to me pretty quickly, of course: Candy Land!
Where the hell was I going to get a Candy Land set in Japan? For cheap?
I wasn't. So I made one.
This took me about 1.5 hours and cost me absolutely nothing, because I had all of the paper already. Technically if you count the cost of the paper (several of these were cut out of papers which are 6 sheets for 100 yen, and I used four sheets of thick white B4 paper which were 10 for 100 yen), it'd probably total around 150 yen. But in reality, since I didn't actually go out and spend any money, I say 0 yen. I basically just made a ton of 3cm by 3cm squares in 8 colors and then glued them to the board and to the cards.
Amazingly, the kids (they're 8-9 years old) just LOVED it. They played once and yelled out all of the colors in English, then demanded to play it again and again. They especially loved deciding that you had to get a pink card to actually win the game (which was not actually my intention, but it's easier to just go with what they think the rules are than to try to make it otherwise) -- and of course I had only made 4 of each card, so they were going through the deck and yelling colors at each other or going "PINK JA NAI!!! MATA SKY BLUE DAAAA!!! DONDAKEEEEEEEE??"
I also used the color cards to play a Memory game, and then also to do a gambling game later on. It was pretty awesome.
Later on, one of my old students who had quit a few months ago came back tonight to sign up to restart classes! I was really happy to see him and we chatted for a while. He was like "I forgot all my English so I had to come back and study with my crazy GEOS teacher again."
After work I played a whole lot of Pop'n at the Kawaguchi arcade, for almost an hour straight. I have no clue why the machines were so deserted but I'm not about to complain.
Things on TV tonight: the "Our Music" program had the Japanese group Exile... and Daisuke Matsuzaka talking to them. Megaspo showed Koji Uehara dressed up as Santa Claus at some hospital visiting sick children for Christmas. And then I watched another episode of that crazy night-dorama about the kid who's an embalmer. I love Japanese TV, but it makes my head hurt sometimes.
Oh, I almost forgot, this morning I got to meet up with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jessed for breakfast! We only had an hour or so and just hung out at the Moomin Cafe down by the Tokyo Dome. He had to catch a bus to the airport to go back to America, and I had to go to work. I was thinking about the tiny little Japanese phrases I do pick up just by being here, such as "Can we get a bag for this croissant so we can take it home?"
On my way out of the Tokyo Dome complex I stopped by To:Do to buy the 2008 Chunichi Dragons calendar (in addition to the Yokohama and Fighters calendars I already have, yes). Kosuke Fukudome is January on the Dragons calendar. Funny that. Morino is May - my birthday month, my favorite Dragon. Tatsunami and Masa are October -the2belo's birthday month, and his favorite Dragon, well, one of them at least...
Today, I had to teach a children's lesson of basically "What color is yours? Mine is blue." I realized that just flashing color cards wasn't going to be much fun and I didn't really want to do color relay races, so I thought to myself: what's a good color game for kids? The answer came to me pretty quickly, of course: Candy Land!
Where the hell was I going to get a Candy Land set in Japan? For cheap?
I wasn't. So I made one.
This took me about 1.5 hours and cost me absolutely nothing, because I had all of the paper already. Technically if you count the cost of the paper (several of these were cut out of papers which are 6 sheets for 100 yen, and I used four sheets of thick white B4 paper which were 10 for 100 yen), it'd probably total around 150 yen. But in reality, since I didn't actually go out and spend any money, I say 0 yen. I basically just made a ton of 3cm by 3cm squares in 8 colors and then glued them to the board and to the cards.
Amazingly, the kids (they're 8-9 years old) just LOVED it. They played once and yelled out all of the colors in English, then demanded to play it again and again. They especially loved deciding that you had to get a pink card to actually win the game (which was not actually my intention, but it's easier to just go with what they think the rules are than to try to make it otherwise) -- and of course I had only made 4 of each card, so they were going through the deck and yelling colors at each other or going "PINK JA NAI!!! MATA SKY BLUE DAAAA!!! DONDAKEEEEEEEE??"
I also used the color cards to play a Memory game, and then also to do a gambling game later on. It was pretty awesome.
Later on, one of my old students who had quit a few months ago came back tonight to sign up to restart classes! I was really happy to see him and we chatted for a while. He was like "I forgot all my English so I had to come back and study with my crazy GEOS teacher again."
After work I played a whole lot of Pop'n at the Kawaguchi arcade, for almost an hour straight. I have no clue why the machines were so deserted but I'm not about to complain.
Things on TV tonight: the "Our Music" program had the Japanese group Exile... and Daisuke Matsuzaka talking to them. Megaspo showed Koji Uehara dressed up as Santa Claus at some hospital visiting sick children for Christmas. And then I watched another episode of that crazy night-dorama about the kid who's an embalmer. I love Japanese TV, but it makes my head hurt sometimes.
Oh, I almost forgot, this morning I got to meet up with
jessed for breakfast! We only had an hour or so and just hung out at the Moomin Cafe down by the Tokyo Dome. He had to catch a bus to the airport to go back to America, and I had to go to work. I was thinking about the tiny little Japanese phrases I do pick up just by being here, such as "Can we get a bag for this croissant so we can take it home?"On my way out of the Tokyo Dome complex I stopped by To:Do to buy the 2008 Chunichi Dragons calendar (in addition to the Yokohama and Fighters calendars I already have, yes). Kosuke Fukudome is January on the Dragons calendar. Funny that. Morino is May - my birthday month, my favorite Dragon. Tatsunami and Masa are October -
the2belo's birthday month, and his favorite Dragon, well, one of them at least...
