An inexpensive kids birthday gift idea that delivers hours of fun and brain building for those alone times when the only other alternative is often the TV. In my book, anything that can replace the TV is a great gift.
One or two decks of nice playing cards, perhaps ones with graphics that appeals to kids rather than the standard bicycle cards, is the tangible portion of your gift. Add to that a notebook where you’ve printed out several or a whole lot of solitaire game instructions and you’ve given hours of fun and learning. I like this particular site for instructions because they include a graphic of the board set up that you can include with your printed instructions that should be very helpful to young children in figuring out the games. But- you can google ‘solitaire game instructions’ and find other sites with many more games you could include in your gift.
Put a card playing graphic and the birthday child’s name on the front cover of your instruction book and your personalized gift is all set. You can even use the cards above on this page, which are from Microsoft’s OnLine Clip Art Gallery.
Kids birthday gifts, even bargain priced ones, needn’t be some plastic gizmo that will stay intact for about a minute. Any gift that teaches a child something new is, in and of itself, a valuable gift, and the universe of how-to info on the web makes it very easy to find and package up such knowledge. And while solitaire is mostly a game of chance, it’s fun, it builds dexterity in handling the cards, it gets the brain going in following the game instructions and learning how to play, and it’s a great alternative to TV. So here’s a kids tip- make a set of the game instructions for your own children too!
