Pool, anyone?

Football pool, that is. At the beginning of the football season, HL was interested in the teams and their standings. He would continuously check nfl.com throughout the day on Sundays and report any scores or big plays to his dad. When my sister heard of this she began generously paying HL's way so that he could participate in the weekly football pool at her office. Little did any of us know just what kind of monster this would create in my oldest... He really took it to heart and learned about the point spreads, collected all the scores each week, calculated the winners, and circled the appropriate squares on the grid. Amazingly, he has been correct in his calculations every week so far! And, since he first saw his Papa playing the pool, those two have started heckling each other every week over their picks. It's become quite the contest between those two! Then, around two weeks ago, he started making up his own imaginary pools, even creating players as well as asking family members to play. And last week, he took it even further and produced his very own pool of the actual games in the NFL. We found out where to get the point spreads through my sister and he wrote up a pick sheet: Daddy scanned that sheet and e-mailed it to several family members. HL collected each persons' picks and handwrote (again) the grid: We offered to type them, and told him he could type them in himself, but he refused. He would have it no other way than to handwrite everything! I know that some people frown on us allowing our 6 year old to participate in what some see as gambling, but I have seen only good things come of it. Every week, my son is practices math when he calculates winners by point spread, and creates and follows grids. He is also writing, learning about football, and figuring out that there is a lot of strategy involved in winning games. Gambler that he may labeled, I couldn't be more proud of him!!