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Thursday, November 10, 2011

Fun and Games Friday: Twenty Questions Edition

Most people consider Twenty Questions to be a rather prosaic parlor game, but in our family, it has a long and colorful history.

You see, my father is notorious for coming home on Friday night and beginning the Shabbat meal by daring everyone at the table:

“You’ll never guess who was in shul tonight. Twenty questions…”

And so the game begins.

Inevitably, the subject proves to be an obscure, random person – that nobody, often not even my mother, has ever heard of or has even the remotest chance of ever guessing…

When the Shiputzim kids were born, YZG and I knew that Twenty Questions was a tradition we wanted to incorporate into our own household.

And so we have. With a vengeance.

For Twenty Questions features prominently in TRLEOOB (=the real life equivalent of our blog).

Of course, the older kids have a definite advantage. Not only do they have better analytical and deductive skills than their younger siblings, but they know more people.

Still, even the younger members of the family hold their own.

For instance, a few years ago, the kids were trying to guess who it was that YZG and I had bumped into at a wedding we had attended.

Everyone was asking a series of well-reasoned questions, in order to gradually tease out clues as to the subject’s identity.

Suddenly, ACYSC (=a certain younger Shiputzim child) - who was feeling somewhat left out and wanted to get in on the action - memorably blurted out:

“Did the person die yet?”

Open-mouthed

In short, there’s much to like about Twenty Questions.

After all, it promotes cognitive development and encourages logical thinking.

And more importantly, Twenty Questions is the perfect game to play when checking for nits in one’s offspring’s hair…

Open-mouthed

!שבת שלום ומבורך

6 comments:

  1. "checking for nits" - that sounds unpleasant!

    Your family knows how to have fun together. The younger ones will catch on, with a vengeance... (speaking as a youngest child and now spending a lot of time with my youngest).

    Shabbat Shalom!

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  2. What a wonderful family activity. I wish we had done it.

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  3. My kids love twenty questions,but we never thought to apply it to "guess who I just saw." Fabulous idea!
    Shabbat Shalom!

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  4. Leora - Your family knows how to have fun together.
    Even the teenagers have been known - on VERY rare occasions - to concede that this is true... :-)

    Batya - I'm sure your grandchildren would enjoy it! :-)

    Laura - Thanks, and shavua tov!

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  5. A game I had never heard of but we do have variations.

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  6. Ilana-Davita - Although it's basically just a simple guessing game, it requires logical thinking and deductive reasoning.

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