Every Friday our 8yo granddaughter rides the schoolbus to our house to spend the night and most of Saturday with us. (It’s the visitation deal I worked out when our daughter and SIL moved out of the second living area in our daylight basement in January. Gkid had lived with us since she was 20 months old, so it was that or they were going to have to just leave her behind!)

Today I was all set to work on a cardboard unicorn, when she suddenly announced that she wanted to make a checker board.

So we searched through my shelves and she picked out some materials (red and gunmetal gray Baltic birch from Inventables with a chalkboard back) and I had her do the math as I drew squares in Inkscape, to figure out how many of each color we needed to make, and how many rows and columns that worked out to, etc.

Then we had a weeding and gluing party, and got the whole thing done just in time to play a partial game before I had to take her home.

Apparently the kids at her school play some kind of chess/checkers/poker conglomeration that has her convinced kings can go in straight lines, and also there are jacks and queens that come into play at some point. It all sounded very confusing. But fortunately for me we ran out of time, so her other grandma (who is visiting at their house for a couple of weeks) will have to sort that out!