Chicken Wing

I love that Wally and Beaver are to the age where they understand board games and can play fairly well. Beaver will be 5 in two weeks, so he can play quite a few games, but he gets devastated if he doesn't win and he doesn't mind to win even if he knows he only won because we all "helped" him get there. Wally isn't like this. He's very competitive and wants to win on his on accord, but he definitely wants to win every game. I love see the wheels in his mind turning and he's really started to develop some strategies for our family game nights.

We've recently started playing "Chicken Wing", which is a dominoes game played with the double 15 set. You start with 20 dominoes each, and you draw until someone gets the double 15. That domino is placed in the center of the table (we play on the tile floor) and that person will go first. We spend the next few minutes getting our dominoes in "order" by making a train (starting with the double 15) and then seeing how many dominoes that won't play on our leg of the chicken. This makes the game go much faster because you don't have to spend time digging through you pile looking for the next domino to play. Each person has their own leg of the chicken they play on, but there's also a "chicken wing" leg that comes out diagonally from the center that can be played on by anyone at any time. The key is run out of dominoes first. If you get to the point where you cannot play on your own leg or on the chicken wing, you must draw. If you still can't play after you have drawn, you become "open" and the other players are allowed to play on your leg. They can continue to play on your leg until you play on your own leg and become "closed" again. Once someone goes "out" (when they run out of dominoes) the other players must count the points (dots on the dominoes) they are stuck with. It's like golf, the lowest score wins. But the game doesn't end here! After the double 15 round is over, you play again but this time you start with the double 14, and so on. So, this game is 16 rounds long (counting the double zero). We only play about 3 rounds a night because that's all the kids can handle....so, it usually takes almost a week to finish the game.

We're having so much fun with this! :)