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What is the Million Minute Family Challenge™? The Million Minute Family Challenge is a grassroots effort that encourages interaction and communication among family and friends through playing board games, card games and dice games. Everyone in the United States and Canada is encouraged to form a group of family or friends, register at www.millionminute.com and play a board game for at least 20 minutes sometime between September and December. Why participate in the Million Minute Family Challenge? Recent statistics show that people are returning to board games as an economical, educational and entertaining way to pass the time. The Million Minute Family Challenge allows these people to gather and share their stories in one central location. Plus it is exciting to see the minute totals increase for your group, state and the grand total. For many, the Million Minute Family Challenge provides the incentive and gentle reminder to put a focus back on family time. Playing board games teaches lessons in sharing and communication. It also helps establish a secure and trusting relationship between parent and child, which is a key part of a child’s development. The face-to-face interaction acheived through non-electronic games is an important aspect of our society and creates an experience that can rarely be replicated. Why play board games? Board games are the perfect fun activity for family and friends of all ages. They help the youngest players develop social skills including following rules, fair play and good sportsmanship. As children grow, board games can help sharpen vocabulary, spelling, math, creative writing and critical thinking skills, all under the appearance of having fun. As people age, games stimulate the mind and improve memory. They are economical and intergenerational. How can I participate? Families and groups are encouraged to block out 20 minutes in their busy schedules to play a board game. Teachers can invite students to play a game in the classroom. Everyone can participate by joining and logging the number of minutes they played board games at www.millionminute.com. What can I do to tell other people about this event? We try our best to make everyone across the United States and Canada aware of the Million Minute Family Challenge, but of course are limited on time and resources. Please help us spread the word by telling your friends, neighbors, family, teachers, members of the organizations you belong to and anyone else you can think of about this fun and easy event. You can also share your enthusiasm through your email, Facebook, Twitter and other means of social networking. We have created some additional tools to help you tell the family next door and your local media. Please contact us if you have questions. How do I determine the amount of minutes to log? Logging minutes is simple! You calculate the number of minutes EACH GROUP plays games for. If you have one group of 5 people playing a game for 30 minutes, you log 30 minutes. If you have two groups of multiple people playing games for the 20 minutes, then it is 2 times 20 minutes for a total of 40 minutes to log. The number of people in the group does not matter. It's all about the time each game group played games! How long is a million minutes? The average person spends about a million minutes on the phone in their lifetime. Learn more fun facts about one million minutes. Who Supports the Million Minute Family Challenge? Patch Products, Inc. organizes the Million Minute Family Challenge. Additional support is received through the following companies interested in encouraging family interaction and communication: AASL (American Association of School Librarians) and Games for Educators. What are people saying about the Million Minute Family Challenge? CLICK HERE to read comments from people who have participated. |
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