This summer we will be hosting two camps for middle school-aged students interested in board games (May 30 – June 1) and board game design (June 11–15).

Spielbound Board Game Essentials Day Camp

From May 30th to June 1st, Spielbound will be hosting a three-day board game camp for middle school students. Board games can be an instrumental tool to grow and encourage skills in spatial reasoning, math, critical thinking, group work and cooperation. Throughout the days, students will have an opportunity to learn games from multiple genres with the help of Spielbound staff and volunteers. The games selected for the camp will give students a comprehensive understanding of the skills and fun to be gained through collaboration and play. The final day will end with a session where parents and Spielbound volunteers will learn games from the student in the camp. Lunch will be provided each day, send any dietary restrictions or accessibility requests to greg [at] spielbound.org and we will work to accomodate them in advance.

Board Game Design Day Camp

From June 11th to June 15th, Spielbound will be hosting a five-day board game design camp for middle school students. Board games can be an instrumental tool to grow and encourage skills in spatial reasoning, math, critical thinking, group work and cooperation. Throughout this camp, students will have an opportunity to learn games from multiple genres with the help of Spielbound staff and volunteers, to identify the structures of board game design, and to then design a working prototype of their own original board game. They will get to work with members of Spielbound's Spielmason board game design group, who have printed and published multiple games. The games selected for the camp will give students a comprehensive understanding of the skills and fun to be gained through collaboration and play, and the design process will help them gain skills in graphic design, creative writing, and collaboration.

The camp will end on Friday the 15th with a demo session where students will teach their games to family, friends, and Spielbound volunteers from 3pm-5pm.

Lunch will be provided each day, send any dietary restrictions, accessibility needs, or questions of any kind to greg [at] spielbound.org and we will work to accomodate them in advance and get you the answers we need.

We <3 Board Games!.

"Hello friend!"

"Hello friend!"

This greeting has become pervasive at home as my 1-year-old hits buttons on her talking toys repeatedly clearly in search of a flaw in the machine.

"Hello friend!"

"Hello friend!"

...

I happened to be opening a new board game when I last heard this. Popping out the cardboard tokens, sorting the meeples, and putting the pieces into zip-top baggies - there's a unique joy in this ritual. Even when you've done it as much as I have cataloging hundreds of games for the Spielbound library. Still, while I have some favorites, my love of board games comes not from the material possession, but from the play with friends*. From the confused look after getting the "Do Something" token playing Magic Maze to the relish of winning a close game of Majesty where everyone scored ~150 points to the look of disbelief when the village removed an innocent villager (again) in Werewolf - the games are the medium (or even the MacGuffin), as the memorable experiences all require the participation of friends!

Coming May 24th!

Omaha Gives! is a 24-hour online giving event organized by the Omaha Community Foundation to grow philanthropy in Douglas, Sarpy, and Pottawattamie counties. The goal is to inspire the community to come together for 24 hours to give as much as possible to support the work of public 501c3 nonprofits in the metro area. This year, if we reach 100 unique donors, we will receive an additional donation of $4,000 in a special challenge made by some of our biggest supporters!

Spielbound strives to educate, engage, and create community through board games. We are a thriving community center for people of all ages, featuring a library of over 2,000 donated board games. Funds received support:

1. Education - providing teachers games and lessons for their classrooms.
2. Stay Sharp Seniors - providing games for seniors to prevent dementia.
3. Spielmasons - game creation and play-testing group.
4. Everyone Plays - teaching games almost every day of the year!

SUMMER DAY CAMPS

This summer we will be hosting two camps for middle school-aged students interested in board games (June 14–16) and board game design (June 26–30).

Board Game Introduction Day Camp

From June 14th to June 16th, Spielbound will be hosting a three-day board game camp for middle school students. Board games can be an instrumental tool to grow and encourage skills in spatial reasoning, math, critical thinking, group work and cooperation. Throughout the days, students will have an opportunity to learn games from multiple genres with the help of Spielbound staff and volunteers. The games selected for the camp will give students a comprehensive understanding of the skills and fun to be gained through collaboration and play. The final day will end with a session where parents and Spielbound volunteers will learn games from the student in the camp. Lunch will be provided each day, send any dietary restrictions or ability limitations to [email protected] and we will work to accommodate them in advance.

Board Game Design Day Camp

From June 26th to June 30th, Spielbound will be hosting a five-day board game design camp for middle school students. Board games can be an instrumental tool to grow and encourage skills in spatial reasoning, math, critical thinking, group work and cooperation. Throughout this camp, students will have an opportunity to learn games from multiple genres with the help of Spielbound staff and volunteers, to identify the structures of board game design, and to then design a working prototype of their own original board game. They will get to work with members of Spielbound's Spielmason board game design group, who have printed and published multiple games. The games selected for the camp will give students a comprehensive understanding of the skills and fun to be gained through collaboration and play, and the design process will help them gain skills in graphic design, creative writing, and collaboration.

The camp will end on Friday the 30th with a demo session where students will teach their games to family, friends, and Spielbound volunteers from 3pm-5pm.

Lunch will be provided each day, send any dietary restrictions, ability limitations, or questions of any kind to [email protected] and we will work to accommodate them in advance.

Did you know Spielbound is a non-profit organization? That means we can’t be what we are without a dedicated army of volunteers doing everything from teaching games at the shop to selling raffle tickets at Shakespearean plays. That’s right: you don’t even have to know how to play any games to volunteer for Spielbound! There are also no minimum time commitments, so anyone can help, even if it is just once.

Anyone who wants to help out can find something to do:

• If you have a game you want to teach others, lead one (or many!) of our daily demos.
• If you are an organizational genius, help catalog games for our library.
• Maybe you’re looking for a way to exercise your razor-sharp wit and would like to be our Communications Intern.
• You could help our Teaching Outreach Coordinator test and develop lesson plans for games.
• We also have occasional outreach programs, such as teaching games at events away from the shop or the above-mentioned selling of raffle tickets at Shakespeare on the Green.
• You can always post short reviews in our online library, but we'd like some larger reviews for our blog here.

Over 2,000 board games have been donated to Spielbound by our passionate supporters. Pictured here are two such games gifted by Kaleb Michaud and Marcus Ross.

The game library at Spielbound recently surpassed 2000 catalogued games.

TWO. THOUSAND.

Passing a milestone like this affords us an opportunity to examine what makes it special. The sheer depth of a publicly accessible catalog that size sets us far apart from the other game libraries and cafes around the world. The bulk of those games are made available from the vast personal collection of Spielbound’s founder, Dr. Kaleb Michaud. You’ll recognize the name from the purple stickers that grace most of the box lids at the cafe. But we also add games to the library via donations from the public. Since the library is part of the 501c(3) non-profit side of the business, donations to it are tax deductible.

The library itself is the central, defining asset of Spielbound’s non-profit arm: it’s the reference catalog for the Spielmasons game design group, the enabling resource for the education program, and the experimental lab for our Stay Sharp Seniors program. Keeping it organized, relevant and vibrant is a constant challenge. The library has to serve all these purposes and also work as an attraction for the public we serve and we have all types: hardcore strategy gamers, college kids on a night out, workers doing team-building exercises, or families spending the day with young children.

Won't someone please think of the Meeples?

Interested in getting involved with Spielbound beyond the games? Most importantly, do you love creating and building the Spielbound community? Then please, for the sake of all the meeples, join our Spielbound team!

Spielbound is looking for a communications intern to get involved with our mission. You would be a part of marketing via Social Media platforms, creating and assisting in the coordination of community events, and helping to build not only the Spielbound community, but its connections with the entire Omaha area! See our full description here for more information.

Also, Spielbound is looking for new volunteers for several of our programs including game demoers, library catalogers, web page editing, and, for those with greater ambitions, board members and staff. If interested, please contact Zeuben, the director of communications, at [email protected].

FREE GAME NIGHT

Come and join us for a game night dedicated to the nonprofit side of Spielbound! We work all over the Omaha area to promote and fulfill our mission: striving to educate, engage, and create community through board games. We have 4 branches that all depend upon our large, donated library and our volunteers:

• Education – works to develop young minds by challenging them! Programs include: day camps, game-specific lesson plans, and UNO educator trainings.
• Stay Sharp Seniors – devoted to the senior community in many areas that include developing senior game-playing groups, researching the health benefits of gaming, and creating accessories that make games more accessible to all.
• Spielmasons – a collective of board gaming enthusiasts that meet weekly to play and test games developed locally.
• Everyone Plays – our primary community outreach: game events all over Omaha, daily demos in our library, and endless opportunities to engage with people and organizations.

Dr. Mark Mills drawing diagrams on a blackboard during testimony before the Congressional Joint Atomic Energy Committee hearings on atomic radioactive fallout, 1957. Hopefully integrating games into your curriculum isn't quite this complicated.

Hello readers of Spielbound.org! The summer may be in full swing but that doesn’t mean that work stops for teachers. We’re participating in summer programs, working on strategic planning, and writing next year’s lessons! At Spielbound my goal for the summer is to start some serious work on getting some teacher guides going to help classroom teachers get the basic information they need to consider using existing games as part of their curriculum.

As I started this process, my biggest goal was to incorporate the realities of classroom teaching into a resource that would help an educator take the first steps into using games. I’ve spoken on this blog before about how logistics can be a challenge in the classroom. We have standards that we must meet. This doesn’t prevent us from innovating curriculum, but it means that we have to be very efficient in squeezing as much time as possible out of our available class time. For games, that means that any teacher guide that we produce at Spielbound needs to communicate how much time it could take students to have a great experience with a game. But that’s just a beginning.