The Parent Bloggers Network is running a contest right now where they’re giving away a Nintendo Wii and a new game called Boogie. You just have to write a post about how your family plays together. Deadline is midnight tonight, though, so get hustling. I actually have a Wii already (though I certainly wouldn’t mind winning another one! Heh.), but this new Boogie game sounds kinda neat, and I figured lotsa parents reading this blog might be interested in getting their paws on one either.

Anyways, here’s my official entry I guess:

We have two young sons (ages 2 and 4) and games are a big part of every single day. Our 4-year-old is really into just about any type of game these days, from video games (he plays Bob the Builder or Winnie the Pooh on his VSmile, as well as some Nintendo games like Mario Kart and Mario Party 8 on the Wii) to interactive DVD games like Hullabaloo. And he loves board games (Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Hi-Ho Cherry Oh, just about any Thomas & Friends game, Hungry Hungry Hippo, etc.) While our 2-year-old is too young to fully understand the games, he definitely tries to jump in, grabbing whatever pieces he can and pretending to move them around the board. And then there’s always jigsaw puzzles; they both love sprawling out on the bedroom floor with the giant pieces to their favorite dinosaur puzzle.

We even make up our own games. Whether it’s setting up a sort of treasure hunt in the backyard (start with a simple map or rule, that leads you to the first clue. The first clue has words or a picture leading to the next clue and so on until you get to the reward at the end.) or physically making our own board game (a good friend of mine made an unbelivably amazing 3-D board game based on the Mario Kart video game my son loves), we’re always thinking of some way to play or make a new game.

And while video games can be a zoning type experience (which they are at times, heck even I zone playing them), they can also be a great source of imagination. Our 4-year-old loves playing Mario Party 8 on the Wii. We play a little every weekend and he gets to “earn” play time during the week for various things (mostly related to potty training). He’s super active during gameplay, standing up and really moving around, shrieking with delight, talking to me, his brother, his mommy, etc. It’s really contagious. But it goes further than that. The game is basically a collection of 50+ mini games, super short fun little games. Some are skill based, some are luck, etc. So on any given day we might be in his room, and all of a sudden he’ll say, “Daddy, let’s play mini-games using these Legos and these superheroes.” So we’ll use Legos, stuffed animals or whatever we can get our hands on to act out his favorite mini game. (Somehow he always ends up winning…). He’ll even make up his own mini-games completely out of his head. I absolutely love how creative he can be, and at times I think he prefers making up his own games with his own stuffed animals to actually playing the video game itself.

So I have Mario and the gang to thank for fostering some creativity in my oldest son. As for the young one… he’s already hooked on Mario and the gang, possibly moreso than his brother. He never misses a chance to race onto the couch, holding either a GameCube controller or Wii remote and pretending to play, as he shouts out every character’s name that he recognizes.

Playing games, doing puzzles or being as imaginative as we can is a daily ritual over here at our house. Unlike the games themselves, though, we have no rules limiting us or our imagination. We don’t set up a special “game time” or anything, we just go with the flow and seize every opportunity we can to play together.

This post is brought to you in conjunction with Parent Bloggers Network & EA’s Wii-Boogie, a family gaming experience. Shake it. Sing it. Create it.