One of my favorite places in the world is the #tmwyk hashtag on Twitter.

If you don’t know, #tmwyk stands for “Talking math with your kids” and it’s a great place to find examples of parents and kids having delightful, surprising mathematical conversations.

This week’s game came straight from the hashtag, courtesy of Allison Hintz. She and her kids invented this game, as you can see from her original tweet.

I first tried this game with my own kids about a month ago, and our car rides have never been the same since. Almost every time we get in the car, my daughter asks “Can we play the ‘When is it big’ game?”

So in her honor, I am coining the game When is X Big?

Writing about games every week, I sometimes worry that I'll run out. 

After all, I've long since written about basically every game, free or commercial, that I knew about before beginning this newsletter back in 2017.

So I scour the internet, looking for ideas. And every once in a while, I stumble upon a cornucopia! 

A couple of weeks ago, I found this British site called Cleave Books. I don't know anything about it, other than the fact that it has a TON of great games, puzzles, and classroom activities buried inside its site (which looks like a time machine to 2002).

The first game I played is called Rectangulation.

Something really special happens in Minnesota every Labor Day weekend.

It's called Math On-a-Stick, and it sounds like one of the most incredible spaces for kids to explore that I've heard of. At the Minnesota State Fair, a bunch of volunteers set up an entire area dedicated to letting kids play with mathematically rich toys. 

It's run by Christopher Danielson, who is the author of How Many? and Which One Doesn't Belong?, as well as the creator of Tiling Turtles, 21st Century Pattern Blocks, and all sorts of other amazing math toys and ideas (I promise someday I'll stop constantly complimenting him (no I don't)).

Some day, I'll find a way to make it up to Math On-a-Stick. Maybe I'll even bring a game or two to play with! But until then, let me share a little game they play at the fair that is playable all over the place: Number Scavenger Hunt

I have officially entered the long, dark period of parenting known as The Age of After-School Activities.

As I write this newsletter, I am sitting in a restaurant, having eaten a dinner I didn't need just to justify leeching off their Wifi for an hour while my son is at Torah Time.

Fortunately, in the previous hour I got to pick him up from school, take him to get some frozen yogurt, and play a quick few rounds of a new game that I'm really enjoying: Sprouts.

This week's blog is jam packed!

I've got a brand-new video about my favorite board game ever, Blokus (more on that below)!

Not only that, I have two games to teach you this week! One is a fantastically fun road-trip game, and the second is its mathematical cousin.

I found both these games on the website of my friend John Golden, who is one of my favorite people to chat with about games and math. He is a math professor and a games addict, and his website is a cornucopia of awesome, mathy games.

Let's get into it! First up: Last Letter Loses!