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Here are four wooden items that I had personally designed in Thailand as intergenerational games.


Stir-it-up Marimba and Slapping Slats
These rhythm instruments are based on American models. The Stir-it-up Marimba is a cylindrical drum that is held in the palm of one hand and stirred with the other hand using the drumstick, as if one were stirring a cake mix in a bowl. Obviously each slat on the cylinder can be individually struck to make its own note, but when stirred, produces a sound something like an old-fashioned coffee pot percolating. It is made of monkey wood, chosen for its resonating properties, and all of the edges have been rounded so that it is comforting to hold.



The slapping slats are much simpler: one end is held in each hand and the rhythmic sound is created by rocking your hands up and down.









Cube puzzle and square puzzle
Both of these are common toys in Thailand, but I had them specially adapted because I knew that wood is intrinsically pleasant to hold and manipulate, as long as there are no sharp edges. Therefore, all the pieces have rounded edges so that they fit comfortably in the hands. Both puzzles also come with instructions for solving, and as real puzzles, are a challenge for any age. However, my goal was to provide both a challenge for the person who wants a real brain exercise and to provide pleasing wooden pieces to hold or re-arrange into patterns or sculptures for children or adults who might be frustrated in trying to master the solution.


The cube puzzle is about 4 inches on each side with a base and a top that fits neatly over the puzzle when it is put together correctly.









The square puzzle has its own wooden case, and on the inside bottom of the case one solution to the puzzle is painted so that if one is in a hurry to solve it or clean-up, it’s easy to do so. However, we provide a simple sheet of white paper to place over the painted solution so that it becomes a real challenge again, and so that the individual pieces can be more easily seen in the dark box.








Supplies are limited. Prices do not include shipping.

• Stir-it-up Marimba, $20
• Slapping slats, $10
• Cube puzzle, $12
• Square puzzle, $28.

To order any of these items, click here.

Positive Mind Stimulation

Continuing with my favorite books related to positive mind stimulation:

Anyone who has attended one of my seminars knows that I put a heavy emphasis on building self-esteem through brain aerobics, rather than tearing it down. Too many of us grew up thinking we were terrible at _______ (math, English, science – fill in the subject of your choice) and as a consequence, doubted our intelligence forever after. Howard Gardner is an educator who long ago wrote that standardized tests missed many of our individualized strengths. He came up with a theory of multiple intelligences, suggesting that we ought to recognize that people who can’t diagram a sentence may be outstanding in other areas, such as music, language, interpersonal skills, or communing with nature. Here are two of Howard Gardner’s books that will help you to recognize other strengths in yourself and your fellow human beings:

• Five Minds of the Future, © 2007. To order, click here.
• Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons, © 2006 (This is an update of his original 1993 book on his theory of multiple intelligences.) To order, click here.
  

One of the authors who was an early inspiration to me is Marge Engelman, who was herself inspired by older women who had thought they were less able to learn than their younger counterparts. After working with older women for many years – when she herself could be considered to be getting on in years herself – she wrote Aerobics of the Mind, which is a delightful book of brain exercises gleaned from many resources. There are word games, optical illusions and games for sharpening the senses, to name just a few. Later, she condensed the exercises to 100 4X6” laminated cards – draw a card and try the exercise. Then in 2006, she produced WholeBrain Workouts – even more brain exercises. There is something here for everyone.

• Aerobics of the Mind – To order click here.
• Aerobics of the Mind Cards: 100 Exercises for a Healthy Brain – To order click here.
• WholeBrain Workouts – To order click here.
  
  
  
  
  

Brain Humor

So far, much of this blog consists of resources for people who are interested in keeping their minds active, and I suspect that’s going to continue for awhile because the resources are vast. Here are some separated by topic that I think you might enjoy:

Humor and your brain
Humor is a great way to keep your mind strong.

1. Laughter brings oxygen to your brain to freshen your thinking.
2. It lowers your cortisol levels, thus lowering your stress levels, and relaxed learners learn more.
3. It unleashes creativity, because finding the funny side of anything requires a new way of seeing the situation.
4. It builds rapport, and our social ties broaden our horizons and lift our spirits.

Anyone who tickles your funny bone is good to hang around, whether through a live performance, a book, TV program or video. Seek out what makes you laugh.

Here are a few book recommendations that are just for fun:

• Everything I Need to Know I Learned From My Cat, by Suzy Becker (A funnily illustrated spoof on Roger Fulgham’s famous book) – To order, click here.
• Life Laughs Last – To order, click here.
• Life Smiles Back (These two books are compilations of the amusing final photos in old Life magazines) – To order, click here.
• The Official Rules and Explanations, The Original Guide to Surviving the Electronic Age with Wit, Wisdom, and Laughter, by Paul Dickson (The rules of our perverse universe that take readers far beyond Murphy’s Law) – To order, click here.
• Reader’s Digest’s Life in These United States (Excerpted stories from many years of this popular magazine column) – To order, click here.
• What’s in a Name? Reflections of an Irrepressible Name Collector, also by Paul Dickson – To order, click here.

And here are books for having fun with the English language

These are both prolific authors with a great sense of humor; almost anything you pick up of theirs is likely to be fun.

• Crazy English, by Richard Lederer – To order, click here.
• Fractured English, also by Richard Lederer – To order, click here.
• Made In America, An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, by Bill Bryson – To order, click here.
• The Mother Tongue, English and How It Got That Way, also by Bill Bryson – To order, click here.
  
  

Resources

More Resources

One of the hallmarks of my writing has always been to provide practical advice for caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in an upbeat manner. When I first started writing about AD, there was essentially only one book that was widely available, and I found it too depressing to be borne. It is still widely distributed, but you won’t find it here, because its ability to instill depression hasn’t changed. But here are four books on Alzheimer’s disease and several related to caregivers’ journeys that are much more helpful:

If you’re looking for basic caregiving books on Alzheimer’s disease, of course I recommend my own. Alzheimer’s Basic Caregiving – an ABC Guide covers:

• the essential background on the disease
• the braided elements of AD, depression and pain
• the basic patterns of progression
• the logic behind behaviors
• the real messages behind attempts to communicate

Activities of Daily Living – an ADL Guide for Alzheimer’s Care covers:

• bathing
• dressing
• grooming
• continence care
• nutrition and hydration

And how to do it all with relative ease.

These books are available by clicking here. Call 800-999-0795 or write to Kathy@wisernow.com if you are interested in quantity discounts or imprinting your own company information.

But the next question is, who has informed my thinking? The June 12, 2008 blog entry lists some of the books and people whom I most admire in this field and whose books I highly recommend. Here are some more:

People with Alzheimer’s disease speaking their own minds

Over the years there have been dozens of books written (with assistance) by people with Alzheimer’s disease. I highly recommend talking directly to people with AD to get a sense of what that person is experiencing and how he or she wants to be treated, and a number of these are highly informative. It’s always important to keep in mind, “When you’ve met one person with Alzheimer’s disease, you’ve met one person with Alzheimer’s disease.” In other words, each person’s life and experiences are unique. Nevertheless, two of the books which I think provide the best insights are the oldest.

Robert Davis wrote My Journey into Alzheimer’s Disease, almost 20 years ago (© 1989) but the 20 pages of chapter 7, “The Abnormal Changes So Far” are still among the most enlightening I have ever read. Robert Davis was a Presbyterian minister and the rest of the book is heavily weighted with his religious views, which may not be appealing to people whose faith is less intense, but chapter 7 is worth the price of the book. An excerpt:

I have lost my ability to fit patterns and pictures together. . . A jigsaw
puzzle is impossible for me. . . I cannot pack a car trunk. I can’t figure out
how to screw a nut onto a bolt . . . This ability to see spatial relationships
is gone. I sometimes find the same difficulty relating verbal things as well.

Cary Smith Henderson tape recorded his thoughts for Partial View, an Alzheimer’s Journal that was published in 1998. His wonderful insights are interspersed with photographs taken of him by Nancy Andrews, which not only help to break up the dialog, but enrich our vision of the author. An excerpt:

When someone wants me to hurry up, I can’t hurry up – there’s no way to hurry
up. The hurrier I get, the behinder I go, and I think that’s pretty much for
anybody with Alzheimer’s. We can’t be rushed because we get so doggone confused
we don’t know what we’re rushing about.

• To order My Journey into Alzheimer’s Disease, click here.
• To order Partial View, click here.

Finding humor in sorrow

The idea that humor is healing has been around for at least a few thousand years, but the father of the modern movement was Norman Cousins who published Anatomy of an Illness in 1979 about his experiences with using humor to help cure his serious condition. A tidal wave of books and conferences followed.

More than 20 years ago, I attended a conference in Saratoga Springs, NY put on by The Humor Project (http://www.humorproject.com/) which provided many new ideas for getting through tough times with a sense of humor. In recent years I have become active in AATH – The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (http://www.aath.org/) which has enabled me to actually be mentored by some of my heroes in this field. Two of those – whose work I use consistently in my seminars – are Allen Klein and Patty Wooten.

Patty Wooten is a successful nurse, wonderful, worldwide speaker and an actress who becomes funnily immersed in her roles as Nancy Nurse and Nurse Kindheart. Check her out at http://www.jesthealth.com/. She gained notoriety as a serious author on healthy humor by writing Compassionate Laughter in 1996, but I most often quote the book she edited in 1994, Heart Humor and Healing. The latter is a collection of short quotes, such as Helen Lerner’s advice to “Give yourself permission to take an intermission,” and one-page stories that alternate between the heartwarmingly poignant and hilarious. I highly recommend it.

Allen Klein has also written a number of books which are collections of uplifting quotes, as well as serious books on humor’s healing effects. He is most famous for his 1989 book, the Healing Power of Humor, but I most often quote and recommend his 1998 book, The Courage to Laugh, which talks about the use of humor in the face of the most serious illnesses. Here, for example, is a quote by Peter Weingold, M.D. from Allen’s book:

Finding humor in a tragic situation is an extremely healthy step. It is a way of
looking toward the future and of saying that this suffering can be put behind us
. . . Humor is something to strive for and embrace. It is a way of saying
“The tragedy has happened to us, but it does not define us. . . We are still
here. We are still laughing. And therefore we have life and hope.”

• To order Anatomy of an Illness, , click here.
• To order Heart Humor and Healing, click here.
• To order The Courage to Laugh, click here.
• To order The Healing Power of Humor, click here.
• To order Lift Your Spirits Quote Book (© 2001), click here.
• To order Quotations to Cheer You Up (© 2006), click here.
• To order Up Words, for Down Days (© 1998), click here.
  

Olympics

Unusual Athletes

In last Sunday’s Parade magazine, Mitch Albom wrote an article about some of the amazing Olympic athletes who do not make it to the winners’ circle, but whose stories can be every bit as inspiring as those who do. I couldn’t agree more. The current issue of Brain Aerobics Weekly is an all Olympics issue and here is one of the stories featured on the discussion page about an athlete Mr. Albom didn’t mention:
Countries which fail to produce athletes able to meet performance requirements to compete – often because they are too poor to provide trainers and facilities – are granted "wild cards", which enable them to send competitors to the Games even if those competitors' abilities are well below Olympic standards. One of these wild cards at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney was Eric Moussam-bani, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea. He swam alone in his heat when two other wild cards were disqualified after false starts.


Before coming to the Olympics, Mr. Moussambani had never seen a 50 meter pool. He had taken up swimming only 8 months before the Olympics, swimming in a hotel pool in his homeland. His race time was more than twice the winner’s time, but he set a new personal best and a national record for Equatorial Guinea. Moreover, he won the hearts of the crowd watching, who gave him a standing ovation. Sadly, Mr. Moussambani was denied entry into the 2004 Olympic Games due to a visa bungle, despite the vast improvement in his swimming over the previous four years. You can see his inspiring performance with the enthusiastic play-by-play rendered by the Australian announcers at http://youtube.com/watch?v=3zjCc_VyxM4.


This week’s BAW also features a word quiz, trivia quiz, design-your-own Olympic mascot imagination exercise and more. Share a subscription with friends and sign up today!

Brain Aerobics Weekly

In every issue of my free weekly Just a Bite digest (click here to sign up) I share samplings of what is being offered in the current issue of Brain Aerobics Weekly, and other articles I’ve written as well as websites and other resources I think readers might find interesting. Here is a sampling of recent exercises in BAW:

• In his short and delightful Book of Sense and Nonsense Puzzles, editor Ronnie Shushan, suggests an exercise that involves matching the names of real companies to what their names sound like they should offer. For example, choosing by sound, Swingline’s logical product would be jump ropes, not staplers. BAW provides 20 matching samples, but this is a game for which it’s easy to invent your own examples. For instance, what would companies like Dollar Tree, Carnival, Blackstone and Starbucks sell if their names reflected their products? Here is an instant, no-prep parlor game. (To order the Book of Sense and Nonsense Puzzles, click here.)

• Another exercise found in Shushan’s book is called “So I says.” I actually first encountered this game in Mind Games, the Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy by Kathryn Wetzel, PhD and Kathleen Harmeyer, MS, a book I highly recommend. (To order, click here.) The idea of this exercise is to fill in the blank with a male or female name that fits the descriptive passage before it. For example, “So I says to the girl blessing the food, I says, GRACE . . .” Like the previous game, you will find 15 blanks to fill in followed by encouragement to think up your own. Any name that is also a verb or noun will do: Daisy, Olive, Pat . . .

• Each issue of Brain Aerobics Weekly, includes 1) a trivia/logic quiz, 2) a word game, 3) an exercise that involves using your imagination or creativity, 4) a brief article followed by discussion questions, plus 5) a section called Potpourri, which includes additional resources or other quizzes and discussion topics I think readers might find interesting. For example, one week we talked about the origins of hot dogs and baked beans because those are both foods that are celebrated in July. But July is also both Blueberry and Peach Month, foods that are high in anti-oxidants (brain food) and that you can feel good about eating, so I also wrote about those in Potpourri. Here’s a bit of BAW trivia for you. Did you know that the names of the two main types of peaches – Cling and Freestone – refer to how easily the fruit is separated from its stones? Did you know that blueberry tea was used by early American Indians to ease women’s labor pains?

• Potpourri often contains other people’s ideas I find creative, like the guerilla knitters who knit decorations for lamp and sign posts, trees and other entities they believe are in need of a bit of brightening. I love the whimsy of their anarchy. You can learn more and see examples at http://www.flickr.com/groups/guerilla-knitting/pool/.


• Potpourri is also where I originally talked about Art in the Park in a previous blog entry and where I wrote about some of the more unusual games of summer noting that for some people, games like croquet are always fun, but others need outdoor games adapted for their frailties or simply to make them interesting again. One person who has done that is Bob Alman, who promotes two versions of a super-size form of croquet. Toequet is played with colored soccer balls that are kicked instead of hit and jumbo-sized wickets. Malletball uses the soccer balls and the new wickets along with heavy (2-1/2 pound) croquet mallets. These versions can be played on the beach, on hilly terrain, in open fields, in orchards and even in snow. The wickets can be placed in a traditional pattern, in an oval or a snaking course. You can learn more at these websites: http://www.croquetworld.com/Game/toequet.asp and http://www.malletball.com/.
• In Brain Aerobics Weekly, I also share quirky information that can be fun to think about. For example, Did you know that women laugh more than men, but men are considered funnier than women? In personal ads women say they are looking for someone with a good sense of humor much more often than they advertise their own sense of humor, whereas men advertise their own sense of humor much more often than they say they are looking for a woman with a good sense of humor. But some same that women are just being kind in laughing at men’s not-always-funny jokes. What do you think?

A Beautiful Way to Challenge Your Brain

Scramble Squares® is a mind-stimulating product I have enthusiastically promoted for more than 10 years. The concept is simple: Take nine 4 X 4-inch squares and form one large square in which the pictures match up on all sides. In other words, if I have a square which has half a yellow tulip on one side, half an orange tulip on a second side, half a red tulip on a third side and half a lavender-striped tulip on the fourth side, I have to be sure that all the pieces it touches in my large square have the appropriate other half.

Simple concepts, however, do not necessarily lead to simple solutions. There are more than 100 variations of these Scramble Squares® puzzles which come from the company b. dazzle (www.b-dazzle.com), and while some are simpler than others to solve, all are challenging. Players often find they can match all but one or two pieces and then have to rethink their strategy from the beginning. Bottom line: Played as intended, this is a challenging brain exercise for anyone of any age.

What I like about Scramble Squares®:
• There are more than 100 variations of flowers, birds, animals, fish and other sea creatures, food and beverages, culture, occupations, cityscapes, cars, sports and other puzzle categories, which means that virtually everyone can find a set of squares to enjoy working on.
• Most of the puzzles feature strong colors so that they are visually appealing and easy for people with less than perfect vision to see clearly.
• Because the puzzle pieces are large (4 x 4 inches), they are easier for arthritic hands to handle, and because they have smooth bottoms, they can be slid around a tabletop without ever having to be picked up.

Variations:• Scramble Squares® can be played as a team as well as by an individual. Teams with either the same or different puzzles can compete against one another.
• Scramble Squares® can be played with fewer pieces. Is a 9-piece square too difficult? Try making a square with 4 pieces or a rectangle with 6.
• Scramble Squares® can be played by simply lining up all the pieces in one long row. Then no single piece needs to match more than 2 sides.
• Scramble Squares® can be played like dominoes. Can’t fit the pieces in a square? Then simply place each piece wherever it does match one side.

Adaptations for people with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia:
• All of the above variations are simplifications that can help people with dementia feel successful with Scramble Squares®. Go with what works.
• When we talk about matching half a tulip, we are talking about a tulip that has a top half of a blossom and a bottom half that is attached to a stem. Solving the puzzle as it was meant to be solved means that putting two top halves or two bottom halves of a tulip together is “wrong.” When working with people with dementia (or people with vision impairments, or even perhaps young children) it is usually better to go with the flow and view slight mismatches as an acceptable variation rather than pointing out the “mistake.”
• Because most of the puzzles feature strong colors, particularly as background, even when they are put together “wrong” they are visually pleasing so that a person with dementia can still feel accomplished for having created an interesting picture. On the other hand, a few puzzles, such as the one of manatees, have highly blended colors so that “mistakes” are less obvious, and again the overall effect of beauty is enhanced, no matter how the puzzle is put together.
• Because the puzzles come in so many variations, it is easy to use their themes as the basis for reminiscence discussions: Do you like fishing? Did you ever have a rose garden? Are you comfortable around farm animals?

Below are a few of my favorite versions of Scramble Squares®, which you can order by simply clicking where indicated. You can view the complete range of puzzles by going to the b-dazzle website (www.b-dazzle.com) and viewing the alphabetical list.

Let the fun begin!

To order American Native Flowers, click here

To order Australian wildlife, click here

To order Farm Animals, click here

To order Freshwater Fish, click here

To order Hot air balloons, click here

To order Hot tamale, click here

To order North American Birds, click here

To order Pansies, click here

To order Quilts, click here

To order Retro- Rods (cars), click here

To order Roses, click here

To order Sea shells, click here

To order Teapots, click here

To order Tropical Fish, click here

To order Tulips, click here

To order Turtles, click here

To order Wine, click here

To intrigue you...

Here are a few examples of ideas that have appeared in my recent Just a Bite Weekly Digests and/or in Brain Aerobics Weekly. I hope they intrigue you and that you will consider signing up!

June is Learn French Month

In the June 9th Brain Aerobics Weekly, I devised a quiz on French words common to English speech. One place you can learn more is http://french.about.com/library/bl-frenchinenglish-list.htm. We’ve corrupted a lot of meanings along the way. For example, “a la mode” means “in style” in French, not “with ice cream” as children might think, and “hors d'oeuvre” means “outside of work,” but in this case, even the French understand it to mean outside of the main course of food.

Discover art in your parks

June 19 is World Sauntering Day (a time to walk happily and aimlessly) so I also suggested in last week’s Brain Aerobics Weekly that you check out the art in your parks. Outdoor art is a great way to stimulate both mind and body as you enjoy being outdoors while analyzing the art. My inspiration was an article about British artist Anish Kapoor, which reminded me of his delightful “Cloud Gate” (more popularly known as “the Bean,”) in Chicago’s Millennium Park. What art can you admire in parks near you? And don’t forget nature’s art in the form of trees, flowers and wildlife.

Being creatively green

If you don’t have even a park near you, much less art, consider signing on to the “Park(ing) project, which creates mini-parks in parking spaces. I also wrote about this movement in a June Brain Aerobics Weekly. It was started by the folks at
REBAR, a San Francisco collective of artists, designers and activists, (See http://www.rebargroup.org/). Beginning in 2005 they decided to address the issue of a lack of downtown green space by creating these mini-parks in standard parking spaces. They feed the meter for two hours, lay down sod and add a potted tree and a park bench, thereby providing a calm oasis among the congestion and chaos. People enjoyed their creation, kept feeding the meter so others could enjoy the mini-park, too, and started spreading the word so that now urban PARK(ing) has been popping up all over the world — Santa Monica, Glasgow, Sicily . Could you try this in your community?

I learned about REBAR by perusing the website http://www.stickandmove.com/brainpickings/ which is loads of fun in a hundred ways, and highly recommended by me.

Humor happenings

I am an enthusiastic member of AATH – the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (www.AATH.org) and two of my colleagues monthly musings that I recommend subscribing to are Leigh-Anne Jashaway-Bryant’s “Don’t Get Mad, Get Funny”* (Sign up at http://www.accidentalcomic.com/) and Allen Klein’s brief “Mid-Month Mirth Memo” (Scroll down and sign up at http://www.allenklein.com/). A “rival” organization, The Humor Project, is about to put on a fabulous conference June 20 -22 in upstate New York (http://www.humorproject.com/). Check them out!

Quiz mania

Every issue of Brain Aerobics Weekly includes at least one quiz, and while I often make them up myself or glean bits of ideas from multiple sites, as I noted in another issue of my Just a Bite Digest, one of my favorite resources is http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/quiz/Default.aspx which provides about 75 ready-made quizzes in one place, along with interesting tidbits supplementing the answers. There are bound to be topics that intrigue virtually everyone.

Brain aerobics resources I recommend

As I have noted in Brain Aerobics Weekly, these resources can be enjoyable ways of stretching your brain, but I suggest two cautions:
1) When playing with older adults, and particularly those with memory loss, throw out the buzzers and timers and play for the simple enjoyment of challenging your mind. How quickly you react really doesn’t matter.
2) Remember that learning new information – that is, looking up the answers – is just as good for your brain as reinforcing existing pathways to what you already know.

Game - Finish Lines To order click here.
Finish the famous quotations from life, literature, TV, music and more

Game- Paired Up To order click here.
The Lone Ranger and.... Corned beef and.... Dungeons and.... Paired Up challenges your knowledge of pairs – words that just seem to go together – whether they're people, places, or just parts of an expression.

Game - Stare (2nd edition) To order click here.
Stare at the image on the card, then answer a series of questions about what you saw – or think you saw. (Wild guesses count). Hundreds of cards to keep your brain challenged.

Game - Visual Brainstorms To order click here.
100 visual puzzles that include logical and abstract thinking, deductive reasoning, twisted mazes, coded messages, 3D befuddlers, and word games

Game - Who Am I? To order click here.
Based on A&E's long-running Biography series, this trivia-style, card-and-board game challenges your knowledge of the famous and the infamous.

Game - Apples to Apples To order click here.
This is a card game of hilarious comparisons. Select the card from your hand that you think is best described by a card played by the judge. If the judge picks your card, you win that round. And everyone gets a chance to be the judge.

Game - Imaginiff To order click here.
Pick on of hundreds of cards that poses a question with six possible answers. ("Imaginiff _____ were an entree. Which would he/she be?"). Fill in the blank with the name of one of the other players, a mutual friend or a famous person in history. In this case, the choices are Big Mac, Duck a l’orange, spaghetti and meatballs, stuffed turkey, canned ham or buffalo wings. Topics are highly imaginative and range from the ridiculous to the provocative.

Game - Judge for Yourself To order click here.
A game of 500 real world court cases for which you get to guess the verdict.

Game - Fact or Crap To order click here.
How much do you know about the world we live in? Using statements from the day to day, to the truly bizarre, what is and isn’t true?

Game - Quiddler To order click here.
118 cards with letters on them. Can you arrange your entire hand into words? Play as a group or as solitaire.

Game - UpWords To order click here.
Here’s an alternative to Scrabble where words can be created vertically and horizontally on the board, or upwards with letters stacked on top of one another.

Game - Batik To order click here.
The Batik board is a vertical, transparent picture frame-like slot, into which opponents take turns dropping either light or dark-colored wooden triangles, rectangles and other polygons. The object is to force your opponent to drop a piece that sticks out above the top of the board. Strategy counts.

Game - Mad Gab To order click here.
Teams or individuals work to decipher groups of unrelated words into real phrases. Example: “Dew Wino Hue?” is “Do I know you?” Includes 1200 phrases for hours of fun.

It’s Photo Month. Are you a visual thinker?

In a recent issue of Brain Aerobics Weekly, I provided a link to the website, http://www.guessthespot.com/ which offers a fun multiple choice quiz that provides aerial views to identify. The first view is at left. Is it : A) Disneyland’s Tom Sawyer’s island, B) Alcatraz, C) Bermuda or D) the Mediterranean Island of Cypress? Learn the answer and stretch your visual thinking skills by accessing the whole quiz at the above link.