Cat's Cradle

Today second graders learned how to play an old-fashioned game: cat's cradle.  They worked with a partner and had lots of fun and got pretty good at it.  They then worked to teach their fifth grade buddy how to play it, too.  Cat's cradle and similar games help children develop fine motor skills, spatial awareness, descriptive and precise language (try to tell someone which x to pinch!), perseverance, and MORE.

Your second grader should be able to tell you:
1.  It was a game played by pioneer children.
2.  It was a good game because all you need is a piece of string and a friend.
3.  The object of the game is to see how many times you and your partner can move through the three shapes correctly without messing up.
4.  The names of the shapes are (as they learned them today, anyway; I'm sure there are others): cat's cradle, soldier's bed, candlesticks.

Here is the video we watched to get an idea of what we were doing (link to YouTube).