Plutarch, Aristotle, Shakespeare and a game of Chess

Spring has only just begun to have sprung here in the Great Lakes Region, but already it tempts us to throw studies to the wind and breathe in the still-nippy air, drinking in the rare sunshine. We as a homeschool family certainly prefer to take a "Sunny Day" off from school to foregoing schoolwork on a "Snow Day".

However, school is still in session and an extraordinary portion of our day is given to studying Plutarch's Lives (currently Poplicola), Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew), Latin, Logic, World History, music, art, geography, math, English, science, nature study, etc., etc.

So when our young students finish school early and have some free time they run excitedly........

to the game cupboard. Yes, my children, while wildly in love with being in the great outdoors, are also obsessed with challenging each other to a game of chess. Does this make their nerdy mother's heart sing? Absolutely! It excites me to see my children not only love to do things together, but to do intellectually stimulating things, and in their free time, too!

So while they are certainly getting healthy doses of this glorious springtime as it roars like a lion and lies calmly like lambs, I get giddy when I see them playing a board game.

What is your family doing to spend time together? May I recommend browsing through our game cupboard? You might find a new obsession of your own!

It all began with one game....

My husband grew up in a family that played games....lots of games. But of particular note are two games that were played because Brian's father was Armenian; Tovli (backgammon) and Fertgal (Nine Man's Morris).

When we lived in the Middle East we had the privilege to visit Damascus and purchase a beautiful Tovli board inlaid with Mother of Pearl which looked very similar to the one Brian's grandparents had owned. However, when it came to teaching games to our children, he realized that we had no Fertgal board, so he decided to make one.

That was our first handcrafted game board.

We homeschool our family and as we began to study the history of ancient civilizations we learned about several games that were played in those civilizations. Brian began making some of those games for us to play as a supplement to school; usually as a Christmas gift to the kids. I thought they were so beautiful that Brian should consider selling them. Well, he really didn't take me seriously until we took some to an indoor 'garage' sale at a homeschool co-op. He sold more of those games than I did any of my 'stuff' and everyone that walked by simply raved about how beautiful and unique they were.

And so Antiquity Gamecrafters was born and we can now be found at http://www.antiquitygamecrafters.com and ancientgamecupboard.etsy.com

Antiquity Meets 21st Century

Believe it or not, we are finally bloggers! It may take time to decide what the focus of this blog will be...Perhaps our games, perhaps homeschooling, maybe our Etsy shop, or Reformed Theology...or it could be a little of everything. Time will tell. Whichever it is, we hope you will stay and get to know us so we can get to know you, too.

~Brian and Jennifer Kooshian~