Mighty Mind and Mama's OCD

This is such a hit at our house.  Understatement!!  DS can't get enough of them, and DD can't wait to get hold of them and eat them.  With the latter in mind, they are only to be used at "the big table" (the dining room table) instead of our kid-sized table.  Of course I'd rather it be on the small table for my son's comfort, but safety first!  I love that we have a designated place for playing as well as rules such as "keep everything on the table."  Good stuff in my book.

Along those lines, one of the horribly unwelcome AND unsolicited advice I love to give is to introduce new toys in a thoughtful way, with guidelines as well as a storage place.  I'll admit I'm not always great at this, because often we'll have something new without having a place for it just yet and the kids will spot it before I can prepare,  BUT when I do manage to do this, it goes over wonderfully.

 
Example time!  Notice in the right photo how everything is arranged.  Cards on the left and right with shapes in the middle and the active card directly in front.  Cards on his right are the new cards, cards on his left are the completed cards.  The shapes are arranged inside the box lid as well before starting.  After doing that together, each time Mighty Mind comes out, my son sets everything up himself in this same fashion.  It seems a little OCDish, but one of the concerns we've heard from a couple of his therapists is that he needs help learning to organize his thoughts (part of his processing issues).  My hope is that this can help him practice.  Also, when I can, I'll start by showing my son where something is in his bookcase so he can see where I picked it from, but in this case, I keep his Mighty Mind box out of his (more specifically my daughter's) reach because of its small, choking-hazard size pieces.

On to Mighty Mind itself.  You get plastic colored shapes and cards.  The lower number cards ease you in.  Here's my son doing the second card.  Two squares.  One's red, the other is yellow.  Put them together to fill in the rectangle shape below.  Ta-Da!  Mighty Mind!

 Secret step not mentioned in the directions:  Place used card in discard pile to the left.

Ta-Da! Mighty Mom Directions!

The puzzles become more challenging as you move through the cards.  Here's a house:

Later there will be pictures with no guidance as to what shapes will fit in there.  Or there will be a shape to take up a spot and you have to figure out how to work with/around it.  My son's had a blast with this for a long time now (he received it as a gift a couple Christmases ago).  I highly recommend this!  It's for ages 3 - 8, and is also a great way to talk about colors, counting, shapes, and pumping creative juices.

This reminds me... I have an awesome Tangram game that no one will play with me... yet.  For now, the waiting game!