Just Hanging

by Marinka on April 19, 2010

On Sunday night I made the kids be all electronics-free and once they stopped calling their local senators and filing complaints with the Hague, we settled into a family game of Hangman.

And by “family”, I mean me and the kids because Husbandrinka was uploading music to his iPod or something.

A while back I noticed a disturbing attempt to make  Hangman something more socially acceptable, where instead of stringing the victim up, kids would draw a spider, adding a leg for each mossed letter, but I prefer to go with the original. Children must learn that their incorrect guesses have consequences. How else will they ever be prepared for Russian Roulette?

I was Young Ladrinka’s first guesser.

I didn’t do well.

Here are the results (he filled everything in after I said something along the lines of “there is no way that this can be right, I give up”).

Here are my complaints:

1. Choosing XBoX 360 is a blatant violation of my “no electronics” policy.

2. 360 are numbers, not letters. Stupid progressive education.

3. I SAID “B” and he added a leg for that one.

4. Why do I, as hangee, have female (or possibly male) pattern baldness?

5. At some point Young Ladrinka said, “You’re getting so many letters wrong, I’m going to have to add some details.” Fine. Except, he added a skateboard. Yes, I am hanging with a skateboard attached to my feet.  Young Ladrinka Newton is failing physics.

Other than that, it was great!

Stay tuned for our next electronics-free evening. Coming soon, in 2011!

One year ago ...

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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }

Stace April 19, 2010 at 8:08 pm

LOL…Xbox 360? No wonder you ended up with a skate board and a comb over…thats impossible to guess!! LOL

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anna see April 19, 2010 at 8:35 pm

I’m dying here. That is the best thing I’ve seen all day. I’m with you on this one, Marinka. That lad is a rule breaker in my book, and he could have at least given you good hair.

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Tiffany April 19, 2010 at 9:11 pm

perhaps in a former life you were a tony hawk enthusiast suffering from alopecia…

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CoftheU April 19, 2010 at 9:39 pm

Ha! I was playing Hangman with one of my boys tonight. It was torture because he can’t spell. Even though he’s 10 years old. I swung from the gallows because I couldn’t guess “bizzre”. How bizarre.

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Jonathan April 19, 2010 at 10:02 pm

At first I thought he drew you a stool to stand on to buy you some more time before he kicked it out from under you!

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I'm Nate's Mom April 20, 2010 at 12:53 pm

Me, too! “Alright, Mom, now jump!”

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Libby April 19, 2010 at 10:47 pm

Hangman is now socially unacceptable? Yet, they just came out with a new version of “Mystery Date”

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Kari April 20, 2010 at 12:09 am

Sadly, when I first read his word on the picture, I thought it was just some random letters and numbers… few more years before my kids get into the electronics and I can easily identify words like XBOX360. Now, if the word had been Leapster, I probably would have recognized it right away.

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Sophie April 20, 2010 at 1:41 am

So now you have to be a psychologist atop everything else? Sheesh!

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monica April 20, 2010 at 3:21 am

oh, i thought you had a skirt around your ankles. that would be bizzre.

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anonymous educator
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 9:30 am

When it’s your turn, I recommend a word like spy, try, cry, etc. Usually they will waste a bunch of guesses on vowels, and in your child’s case, perhaps numbers as well. And you can always change the word as you go if you need to teach them a lesson about losing.

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the mama bird diaries
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 10:33 am

Xbox 360? That’s hilarious.

Hangman? Don’t you have monopoly hanging around there?

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Susan (woo222)
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 11:16 am

That’s impossible, lol. The numbers would have done me in as well. I like you, so I’m going to tell you a secret I NEVER tell ANYBODY. My favorite words to use when playing hangman? “Xerox” is the best, no one EVER gets it. Also, I like “velcro”. Even when people get some of the letters, they usually can’t guess the word. Shhhh don’t tell my secret. Now you will kick ass at hangman 😉 Have a great day! ~Susan

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anonymous educator
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 11:39 am

Hmmm. I figure they would get to _ero_ pretty quickly. And likewise, if someone gets t0 _e_cro, they should get velcro.

Almost everyone runs through the vowels first, which is why I like words with y words. And with the three letter ones, they are likely to end up 6 guesses in with _ _ y, say 7 guesses in with _ ry and forced to guess between at least 6 words. With little kids I’d probably use the following words:

wry
ply
lynx
Kyrgyzstan

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kiki
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 11:26 am

LOL. great post and what a fun round of hangman with Lad. i still play that game…only i play it by myself, since my husband and son have short attention spans and want to move on to something else about 5 minutes into the game. take care.

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Slow Panic
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 11:59 am

when we play hangman i like to use phrases like, “go do the dishes,” “your mother is perfect,” “always buy girls jewelry”

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anonymous educator
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 12:25 pm

Those are all good–well, maybe not the last one–but your kids have to smart enough to guess them, which I suspect is going to be an issue in our house.

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dusty earth mother April 20, 2010 at 1:32 pm

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I think attaching the skateboard to your feet was probably an act of kindness–you know, since you were obviously going to die anyway, why not speed up the process and put you out of your misery. You’ve obviously raised compassionate children. Good for you.

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Amber
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm

We used to play HangMan in school when we had a substitute. Nothing like lynching a poor stickman on the blackboard!

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Christine April 20, 2010 at 5:12 pm

I teach a religious ed. class to fourth graders at my church and it is living hell (for me at least). I try to bribe good behavior out of the kids by playing a game at the end of class if they participate. We were all happy with hangman for a few weeks until the nun who runs the program caught wind of this and told me it’s “unchristian.” One of the kids in the class suggested we could just call it “Holy Hangman” and that would make it Christian. We’re back to MadLibs and Telephone which can test the limits of decency if not Christianity..

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Erin I'm Gonna Kill Him
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 5:55 pm

I feel like a good ole game of hangman now! I’m going to play against myself and use the body of my boss as the hangee. I think I know who’s going to win…

I love the added accoutrements. I used to play ‘Pig’ against my brother all the time, but the second I missed a shot resulting in the G, I’d declare ‘PigLET’ so he had to keep going.

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ShallowGal April 20, 2010 at 8:05 pm

Dude enough with the excuses. Face it, you suck at Hangman.

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MashugaMom
Twitter:
April 20, 2010 at 10:54 pm

Hysterical! Melissa & Doug (love their products) make a great wooden travel hangman game for kids. It rocks and might help with some word ideas! Enjoy-

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Issa
Twitter:
April 24, 2010 at 10:20 pm

My kid has this great hangman app on her…oh wait, that wasn’t the point of no electronics, now was it? 😉

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