This August 15th, India celebrates its 75th year of Independence! For Indian-Americans this celebration means just as much as the American Independence Day that we celebrated just a month ago!
Amidst all the celebrations of fireworks, parade, and parties, being able to celebrate freedom and independence of both countries brings an opportunity to reflect on the very different histories, cultures, and values of the two nations.
Starting with the significance of the Indian and American flag colors (the white in the American flag is purity and innocence whereas the white in the Indian flag is peace and truth),
– to the different kinds of leaders and approaches they used to obtain freedom (“Even as America won its independence through suffering, valor and sacrifice, so shall India, in God’s good time achieve her freedom by suffering, sacrifice and non-violence.”-Gandhi),
– to the many ways you can interpret what ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ means – both from a political, cultural and personal stand point…
– its great conversation material to explore not just the values and culture upheld by the two countries but also the workings and thought processes of everyday life!
Find It! Indian-American
With that in mind, we created an Indian-American version of the classic game for all ages – Spot It/Dobble, enriched with symbols and icons of both India and America that are waiting to be found.
Use this 57-card deck to challenge the whole family to find Indian and American national symbols, typical representations such as Indian spices, American BBQ, or popular sports, etc. Or use it to trigger engaging deep conversations on the values of the colors of the flags, currency, monuments and so on.
Simply print out the cards back-to-back on cardstock, laminate it if you want, cut and store in the cute printable box that comes with it.
If you’ve never played this game before – the rules and objectives are simple –
Remember that any two cards have ONE symbol in common. To play, deal each player one card face down. Put the rest of the cards in a pile face up in the center of the table. When you’re ready, flip over your cards. If you are the first person to find a match and call it out, you can pick up the card from the middle and place it on top of your pile face up. Continue playing until all cards are finished. The player with the most cards at the end wins!
Even though it’s a game for kids, I have seen adults get as aggressively competitive as any toddler! (Ahem – of course I speak for myself at this point!)
In case you need a cheat sheet for all the names of the symbols or you want to use it in a more educational context, use this handy list:
It’s also a great game to explore the mathematical aspect in the design of the game – as the most intriguing part is that any two cards in the entire deck will always have one matching symbol! If you want to explore more about the math behind the game, and make your own version of the game, check out RadiganEngineering.com.
Happy Indian Independence Day and be sure to let us know about all the interesting conversations and the crazy fights you had with the game!
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This game looks amazing .Thank you so much for sharing but i couldn’t download it for some reason . i submitted my mail id and subscribed but still i didn’t get that spot it printable .Can you please help me with that .
Hi! So glad you like it! Try downloading it in the resources page – if not I will mail it to you!