Teach Higher-Thinking Skills the Fun Way: With Games!
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine—and it can help with learning skills, too! Games offer children an opportunity to develop higher-thinking skills that can relate to their schoolwork but without the pressure of a formal setting or the feeling of being under inspection. It’s also an ideal way to bring the family together for both competition and teamwork. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Jigsaw puzzles
Puzzles help develop visual perception/processing as well as motor skills. Not only does the picture have to make sense, but also the pieces have to be placed together just right. Show your student some strategies for attacking the puzzle—edge first, then that yellow house and red car should be easy to spot, and so forth. Pieces can be arranged by shape—all the pointy corners, for example, making it easier to spot the right piece for that pointy space that’s empty. If you’re really adventurous, try a 3-D puzzle and really stretch your visual/spatial perception which can help with skills like map reading, geometry, art, and more.
Word games
There’s a variety of these available, but my personal favorite is Boggle ™. The letter cubes are jumbled around in a box and settle into a grid in random order—and in random direction. In this game you get the bonus of adding visual perception to spelling as you try to spell words on the cubes even though the letters are at all angles. Adults and kids can both play by requiring the adults’ words to have a higher minimum of letters per word. This way the whole family can still compete—and just think of the exposure to new vocabulary as parents explain that, yes, “poise” really is a word!
Number games
You can usually find at least one of these games in the Sunday paper, but they also come by the book—fitting numbers into a pattern helps to develop logic. The process of elimination strategy teaches important problem-solving skills.
Number games are not limited to numerical symbols. They can include games that involve quantities, like Mancala and also games that use sets of numbers—either grouping the same number with different colors or grouping a sequence of numbers. The game SET® asks players to identify patterns [link 1] of shapes, colors, and quantities—there’s even a daily puzzle version available online.
Strategy games
Consider teaming a child with an adult or older student to work out strategies together. Whether it is claiming territory, eliminating suspects in a mansion, or cornering a king, these are great problem-solving opportunities and can reinforce skills used in math problems, understanding social studies (cause and effect), and more.
Remember, the impact comes from enjoying these activities. Let the students play and then point out how math really is useful in real life—or let them blissfully imagine that this had nothing to do with learning at all. After all, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.