Proud of my super inventive son!

I'm never sure how Daniel will occupy himself when we hang out with our super home learning family friends!  These kids amuse themselves, often silently working or reading by themselves for an hour or two.  Will Daniel find something to do?  Will he get the engagement, I feel he needs, will he be bored?  My doubts are always unfounded.  The creativity, kindness, enthusiasm for each other's ideas always rubs off.  Plus, my little dude knows how to occupy himself too.  Daniel wanted to play a board game with everyone, but there where none to play.  S. suggested cards.  Nah!  M. brought out the Jenga, and they played around.  Then, while other's were busy, Daniel invented his own game!  Replete with pretty complex rules, and both girls were into it.  I was sitting working on the sofa in silence, and frankly amazed by Daniel's idea, and by the enthusiasm of the girls to join in, and contribute their ideas.  Later, M. mentioned that Daniel really wanted to play it with me.  Thanks for that consideration, M!  So, here they are setting the game up for me.  A game entirely of chance, but definitely fun.  Each person gets a Jenga colour, and rolls a Jenga die to then picks up a Jenga piece and the card below.  Brown pieces win picture cards (king, queen and jacks), red Jengas win red number cards, and Black ones win black cards.  Everyone wins jokers.  You keep rolling the die until you either get your colour or a star.  If you role a star, you can keep whichever card you lift out from under the Jenga piece, and keep them for points: Jenga piece is worth one, number cards their face value, Jacks 11, Queens 12, Kings 13, and Jokers 14.  If you role your colour first, you can only keep the card that matches it.  Cards that don't match get discarded for the next round.  Each round involves laying out a grid of cards that can be divided by three players with equal amounts of cards each, with each round using fewer and fewer cards (the discards). Very complex!  In the end the game is just luck, but it was wonderful to watch each child, Daniel, A. and M. work out for themselves how to add their points accurately, help each other with this.  Great math practice.  Incredible planning and inventiveness on Daniel's part, and wonderful to see them collaborating on this so enthusiastically.  This was a wonderful "home schooling project"!