Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…..
A favourite collaborative board game.
As much as we enjoy Carcasonne, sometimes the competitive element is all too much for the little ones. Which makes Forbidden Island the most played board game in our house. In it players are assigned roles with specialist skills to collect treasure, rendezvous and make their escape while the eponymous island sinks around them, growing smaller with each round.
The game mechanics are well thought through and can be adjusted to increase the difficult based on the ages/emotional resilience of those playing it. Highly recommended.
If you’re looking for other collaborative game, another excellent one I’ve mentioned here in the past is Bandido, and for younger children Race to the Treasure (made by cooperative board game specialists, the wonderfully named Peaceable Kingdom).
Domestika Courses
To use a hackneyed phrase, it has never been easier to be a “lifelong learner” (it has also never been easier to use a thesaurus to avoid hackneyed phrases). But there have also never been so many platforms to choose from. Masterclass? Instructables? LinkedIn Learning? Skillshare? The Great Courses?
Having tried a course or two on most of them, the place I keep coming back to, for artistic courses at least, is Domestika.
I’ve taken courses children’s book illustration, animation, pencil portraiture and toy design courses amongst others.
Figure studies for graphite pencil portraiture course.
I do, however, miss the old days though. I’m not sure what the companies origins are for, although now based in Berkley, most of the early content on the platform was in Spanish. The translation AI has since been vastly improved, but early courses were full of startling and inspirational mistranslations and malapropisms. “Touch the stubbie on the flat!” commanded one instructor. No idea.
Favourite newsletters.
I’ll do an end of year wrap at some point in the next 29 days but as a tester a few of the newsletters I’ve enjoyed most this year:
Deepculture.
Twenty links every Tuesday (for the free version). A gateway to a wealth of interesting articles and useful tools (like this one) .
Recommendo.
Six recommendations in your inbox every Sunday morning.
The Magnet.
Aforementioned and my favourite newsletter. An eclectic mix of “stuff'“ beyond my capacity to describe.
Nitrate Diva.
Originally an Insta-fed about old movies, and since blossomed to an occasional and very in-depth newsletter on the same topic.