Shadow tag

Warning^__^ : This one is meant for more than 2 players but can be played by 2...it just doesn't seem as so much fun.

Time: as long as you wish.. could be about 30 minutes

Age group: 3-99

Goal:

player who is "it": to step on somebody else's shadow

other players: to don't have their shadow stepped on

Educative purpose:

little children could learn about their shadow and how it changes, it also helps as an excercise to make the children run about:)

Things you may need:

some open space outdoors where you can run safely:)

How to play:

http://www.onemanga.com/Natsume_Yuujinchou/26.1/05/ ...this is where I found it:)

http://www.ivillage.com/how-play-shadow-tag/6-a-145152

Emili Dickinson - A door just opened on a street

I had wanted to write a similar poem years ago. The concept of a door at the street (which closes with all the good things inside and a lyric heroine stays out of it) is a deep one with many connotations.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-door-just-opened-on-a-street/

Hillaire Belloc - Jim

a story of a naughty boy reminding me of morbid folk ballads:)

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jim/

Yes and no

Time: about 5 minutes a guess

Age group: 3-99

Goal:

player A: to guess what does player B have in mind

player B: to think up something A isn't able to guess (though it should be something A knows to be fair)

Educative purpose:

it could be used in a language course because the students can train ther ability to use questions.

Things you may need:

nothing special:)

How to play:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_and_No

Tic Tac Toe

Time: about 1 minute

Age group: 3-9

Goal: be the first to make a row of 3 your symbols, circles or crosses.

Educative purpose: 

It's simplicity makes it a good example of combinatorial game theory and artificial intelligence programming

Things you may need:

pen&paper / chalk&blackboard

How to play:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe

Hangman

Time: 1-3 minutes per word/phrase

Age group: depending on the words used 3-99

Goal:

A: guess the word

B: find a difficult word A won't be able to guess

Educative purpose:

Enhance your vocabulary in your first or in a foreign language. Good tool for learning new words.

Things you may need:

pen/pencil and paper or chalk and a blackboard 

How it's played:

1. Player A thinks about a word and draws as many lines ( _ _ _ ) as there are letters in the word and he/she draws a simple gallows with one horizontal and two vertical lines looking somehow like this:

______

|              |

|

|

2. Player B guesses a letter. If it's in the word, player A writes it on the corresponding line(s). If it's not, player A writes the letter under the gallows and draws a part of the hangman - parts should go in this order: (head, body, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg)

3.Repeat step 2 until either player B guesses correctly the word(B wins) or the poor man is hanged which means that player A won.

Games for two players

If you are ever stuck at the island with just one other person, make sure you know how to spend your leisure time^__^ This site should give you some ideas.

What to do with the chords?

For me this is still an open question. I have come to the point where I can play the chords of many songs. I can play major chords, minor chords, 7th chords and more, however the songs sound uninteresting with just the plain chords.

So I've tried different things:

Playing a base note( chord name note) with my left hand, chord with right hand. (for C it would be C in left hand and CEG in right hand)

Playing 3d and 5th tone of a chord and then 1st tone in left hand while playing the chord in right hand.(for C it would be EG,C in left hand and CEG in right hand)

For some songs in 3/4 rythm I use the easy waltz pattern in left hand (for the C chord: C, EG, EG).

Another thing which seems to work in some songs is to alternate the octaves where you play the same chord.

What else coud I do? Anyone having ideas please, cmment :) It's quite possible I may edit the post with your suggestions.

About this section

I've been trying to learn to play piano for about 10 years and still I don't consider myself a great piano player. But I've come across many sites which claim to have "free" lessons which are actually only a bit more than commercials for their lessons they have for sale.
I don't want to make money from teaching you about my views of music. I want to have a different profession than a music teacher. Playing music is just my hobby. This blog comes from the struggles I've made to find some decent free lessons about piano playing. I just wish to make it easier for others to learn how to play because I think music is an awesome art worth pursuing for anyone.
Some people who inspired me:

"Harmonica man" who lives to teach children how to play harmonica
Heartwoodguitar.com 
a site of a professional guitar teacher with really helpful free lessons for guitar beginners and lots of chord charts with strumming patterns - I've found the patterns very useful because most chord song databases don't show them.

Pianobychords.com is a simple method of teaching piano by chords but I couldn't manage to get trough all the lessons yet. I guess I will try to give it some time.
Pianofundamentals.com is a site about piano practice, with a downloadable pdf book and translated into various languages... I like the concepts though I haven't find the time to finish the book yet...

So that should be enough for an introduction. I'll try my best to put in this section all my insights of an unskilled person how to improve my poor piano playing with some easy to follow tricks.