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Educational Games

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Posted by Your Guide on March 14, 2006 4:22 PM

Many of the games you played as a child are just as popular today. As you play them with your children you may find that you were learning back then, but did not know it because you were busy having fun. Candy Land is a good example of a fun game that teaches pre-reading skills without ever mentioning reading. Candy Land is a popular board game that requires no reading skills to play, but teaches some very important reading concepts. In Candy Land, players draw a card that has squares in different colors. Players move the designated number of blue squares (either 1 or 2) and most of the game they move toward the final square. But occasionally, the game trips them up and they must go back to a previous point on the board.

Reading works the same way. For the entire line, we move from left to right, top to bottom. But when we come across a specific cue, (the end of the line), we must reverse our direction and go back to the left from the right.

Chutes and Ladders is another board game that teaches directions such as “up,” “down,” “back,” and “forward.” Even though these directional words seem to be far removed from the reading lab, the fact is that children need to be familiar with the concepts of left, right, up and down before they can understand how their eyes are supposed to move on the page while they read.

Monopoly, Jr. is a great game for teaching counting, addition, and subtraction. The bonus with Monopoly, Jr., is that the game never lasts as long as traditional Monopoly, and the hotels are not as expensive.

Hi-Ho Cherry-O is an early counting game that preschoolers have enjoyed for many years. It’s simple format and fun cherries make it possible for preschoolers to practice their counting and sorting while having fun.

Memory Matching Games, where all the cards are placed on the table and the child tries to find the matching card, are great for young children.

Games such as Connect 4, Tic Tac Toe, and Checkers are all fun games that teach strategy and thinking ahead. Not only must you think through your next move, but also the next move or two that your opponent might make in order to be prepared for your turn. Othello is another game that requires no reading, but whose strategy can be complex or simple, depending on who is playing the game.

Card games such as Old Maid and Crazy Eights have been around for many years, but are still as popular as ever. These games teach matching, and strategy. Domino games teach simple matching and addition, while dice games, such as Yahtzee teach how to form simple patterns and sequences.

Cranium, Inc. has carved quite a niche for itself in the educational games market. Not only does it offer board games designed for many different age levels, but it has also managed to design different games with the same basic premise that are interesting and fun to play. The Cranium premise is that it’s fun to be smart. Building on that idea, the people at Cranium have designed games for many interest areas and abilities. Below are just a few of their titles:

• Cranium (15 to adult)
• Cranium Cadoo (7 to 12)
• Cranium Whoonu (8 & up)
• Cranium Bumparena (7 & up)
• Cranium Hullabaloo (4 & up)

Now you know. If you want to be smart, gather the kids and go play a game!



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