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Don't wait for a cold, snowy or rainy day to break out the games. Anytime is a good time to connect with your family over a friendly board or card game. Try getting into the habit by designating one night a week as family game night. Consider inviting grandparents or other significant seniors to join you. They grew up before television and computers dominated so much of our lives and can probably teach us a thing or two about playing games. Seniors can also be very patient, making them great partner players for those too young to play by themselves.
Game night can provide an opportunity for quality time with family and friends. It might be one of those rare times during the week when families sit face to face, while interacting, talking and listening to each other. This non-threatening interaction may lead to discussions about important issues that families need to talk about.
Games help teach important skills
Most board and card games teach and reinforce important skills such as following directions, cooperation, taking turns, teamwork and how to be a good sport whether you win or lose. These important social skills are not spelled out in the game directions but will need to be modeled and taught by adults or older children. Seize the teachable moment for these lessons and don't expect perfection, especially from younger children. All of these skills are learned over time as children develop cognitively and emotionally. Many games can be modified to make it easier for younger players to learn, or the games may be played with combined teams of older and younger players.
Over time, you will notice players able to concentrate longer and develop an increased attention span, both of which help children do better at school, and adults do better at work.
Try classic and modern games
Many classic as well as modern games encourage problem solving and strategizing, both of which are higher level thinking skills that can be exercised in a game situation and then used in real life situations.
Opportunities for learning to be honest abound when playing games. Not cheating when it looks like you might lose, as well as making choices and accepting the consequences of those choices come into play as the player moves a game piece or picks another card. Even responsibility and organization skills can be taught by including all players in the chore of cleaning up and putting all the pieces away so that you can play again another day.
Preschool board games often have simple objectives like learning to recognize colors, numbers, shapes and letters by using visual discrimination skills to match or find pictures and symbols. Many of these games also help youngsters learn to count and develop eye-hand coordination and fine motor control as they manipulate the game pieces.
Games are educational
Games for school age children often reinforce the basic skills learned earlier while emphasizing very specific skills like reading, spelling, vocabulary building, memorizing and math. Some games even teach facts about science, social studies, literature, history and money management. Games keep this learning fun by asking players to read questions out loud, keep score or make change with pretend money.
Examples of educational skills taught by specific games include:
| Yahtzee |
Math |
| Scrabble |
Vocabulary, math and spelling |
| Sorry |
Counting, colors and strategy |
| Clue |
Memory, deductive reasoning, counting and record keeping |
| Chutes & Ladders |
Counting and consequences |
| Monopoly |
Problem solving, strategy and money skills |
| Jenga |
Eye hand coordination, observation and concentration |
| Gold Fish |
Number recognition and matching |
| Payday |
Math and money management |
A good reference book to have on hand is Hoyle's Rules of Games. In addition to helping you discover how to play a variety of games it also helps solve arguments about game rules.
Games are fun for all
Don't fool yourself into thinking games are great learning tools just for children. They can benefit us all, young and old alike, by keeping our fingers nimble, our connections with others strong, our laughter loud and our minds sharp. And games are fun. In the words of Charles Schultz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, "Try not to have a good time .this is supposed to be educational."
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