Uno

Who: J1 eagerly, J2 reluctantly
When: before bedtime
What we used: Uno card deck
Where: bedroom floor

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The card game Uno has recently become popular at Baan Pathomtaam and J1 caught the bug. I picked up a pack last week and we've already played 20 (or 30, or 50?) times.  Apparently, there was even a solitaire game played at 5 am this morning.

I guess . . . that I don't really get the point of the game, so I'd welcome any comments pointing out interesting things that I'm missing.  Here's what I've considered so far:

• For very young children, this reinforces recognition of colors and numbers.
• Generating "uno" patterns: sequences of objects with two (or more attributes) where only one attribute changes for each step of the sequence.
• A bit of counting when you decide what color to call for a wild, executing a draw 2 or wild draw 4, and noticing that the other player has gotten to one card.
• Some strategic thinking to determine what cards to hold toward the end, or more advanced tactics if you can remember enough information to figure out what the other player is holding.
• You can modify the rules to introduce some arithmetic practice (some ideas are in the links below).

I've cheated a little.  Not at the game, but just in introducing a bit of extra math artificially.  When I deal out the starting 7 cards for each player, I put them in a grid so we get a quick reminder of one of our multiplication pictures:

Other ideas
That trusty friend, Google search, came up with some ideas for math games using Uno cards:

• place value war and 10s memory (both explained here: http://living.weelife.com/2012/08/two-uno-math-games.html) and 
• an uno progression (http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-teach-math-with-uno)
• a fun paper studying the structure of UNO by Erik and Martin Demaine et al: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1003.2851.pdf.