CHILDREN BIRTHDAY BOARDGAMES PARTY @ OLD TOWN KOPITIAM 16/3/07
Event Report by jack208

Birthday Boy: Bryan (Happy B'day!)
Facilitator: Wai Yan (waiyan), Lai Wah (alw8871), and Jeffrey Au (jack208)

Location: Old Town Kopitiam, Cheras
Date/Time: 16 March '07 (Fri) 600 PM - 930 PM

INTRODUCTION
What do you do to celebrate a child's birthday now? Throw a party? Balloons and hula-hoop? Want something different, fun, and yet educational? Why not do a Boardgames Party to celebrate the birthday? It's a great way to entertain and build comradery among the children!

A Children Birthday Boardgames Party is basically a themed party centred around many of the popular Euro Designer Boardgames for children. Similar to the Last Defence Party we did for a group of 11 enthusiastic children back in Oct last year, this party uses boardgames instead of the W40K miniatures.

While waiting for the rest of the children to arrive, Jeff started a game of Blokus (Classic) with three early birds. This classic abstract game takes less than 3 minutes to explain and is a very educational game for young children, teaching them spatial visualization skills and more importantly, how to accept "getting thrashed" by a big bully. :P

Jeff getting the party going by bullying some kids in Blokus

When the rest of the children arrived, we quickly take down their orders and passed to the Old Town Kopitiam people to rush the food out. Looked like Nasi Lemak and Nasi Ayam Rendang were the favourite dishes for the day!

Waiting for their food to arrive...

Getting their tummies filled up with food before starting the gaming session

Memoir 44 has always been a crowd favorite at BoardgameKids so it was no surprised that the children asked for this game to be the 1st to get on the table. They like to play tag team style 2-vs-2.

2-vs-2 tag team for the Sword Beach scenario

A second Memoir 44 set was put up to do the Gates of Moscow scenario in the Memoir 44 Eastern Front set.

Another Memoir 44 set but for an Eastern Front scenario (Gates of Moscow)

Every time the Eastern Front set is brought to the table, the winter/snow board looks so beautiful and how I wish I could play the Eastern Front scenarios more often but now 18xx is the current obsession for the OTK kakis. :P

How beautiful the Eastern Front winter/snow board looks!

On another table, Wai Yan set up Blokus (Classic) for the younger children (5-6 yo).

While the older children did Memoir 44, the young ones enjoyed Blokus. Seen here is the birthday boy Bryan (blue shirt).

Some games just seem to have the "magic" as my buddy Edwin said. How true....  because whenever we bring "this game" to the table, everyone including the parents will crowd around the table!

Well, Memoir 44 do attract attention from the grown-ups but usually only the male grown-ups. "This game" attracts both genders!

"The game" that always draws the attention of everyone!

I suppose the cute wolverines figurine in Gulo Gulo are pretty likeable.. and everyone just wants to help them rescue their young 'uns.

Cute wolverines are the key attraction...

While the young children were helping the Gulo Gulos to rescue their young gulos, Memoir 44 was still going strong at the other table.

The seasoned Western Front commanders now joining the battles in the Eastern Front

Parents enjoying Gulo Gulo with their children (and frens)

After around 2 hours of gaming, it's time to celebrate the birthday with sing-song and cake-cutting.

Cakes being given to everyone

Click here for more photos of the Children Birthday Boardgames Party.
For more event and meetup reports, visit our BoardgameKids Blog.
To discuss this event, visit our forums in BoardgameCafe.net

If you wish to organize a Children Birthday Boardgames Party for your children, please get in touch with us. Kids Edusoft have been doing boardgames meetup for young children since 2005 and we are no stranger to hosting such parties.

To buy boardgames for children, visit our Web Store. We carry over 200+ games and provide prompt delivery to anywhere in Malaysia.