Marbles

My kids and I added to our origami repertoire by attending the "Origami Extravaganza" at Graham's Book and Stationary in Lake Oswego where we practiced making windmills, boats, and balls using paper. An added bonus was seeing the largest paper crane in Lake Oswego hanging right outside the entrance to the store.

Before leaving, I picked up a book about marbles (with marbles included) for my son and we all played marbles at home. I told my son and daughter I used to play marbles as a child in San Francisco. We used to draw a chalk circle on the sidewalk, spread the marbles out within the circle, choose our favorite marble and use it to knock out marbles one by one. Today at home, I placed a plastic hula hoop on the wood floor, placed the marbles within, and with our favorite marble took turns knocking the marbles around. But what the kids had most fun with was taking the marbles and flinging them so that they whizzed around the inside of the hula hoop. They did this for a long time. This is not playing marbles, I thought. But who am I to determine for all ages how kids should play with marbles. That they just play and laugh and giggle is more important, I suspect.