Popular Learning Games

Best Learning Games

When listing popular learning games, I wanted to include games that were good for younger kids and teenagers, since learning games are going to be different for each age group. If you have advanced younger children, they might prefer to play some of the games I listed among the teen popular games. Also, tweens can play either, probably depending on the age of their siblings.

Popular Learning Games For Kids

There are all kinds of learning games for younger children, so I wanted to point out a few of the top possibilities from the board game and online game formats. These teach reasoning and thinking skills to children on one level or another.

Mancala – Played in Africa and Asia, but also marketed here in the states, this game is compared to Chess and Go. The game requires you to capture stones, while counting and redistributing seeds that are placed in the holes on the board at the beginning of the game. This is why westerners sometimes call Mancala a “Count and Capture” format or game. You’ll see this marketed as the “Pine Mancala Game”, because you can buy a set with a pine game board.

Mad Gab – For 2 to 12 players, each team is giving two minutes to sound out puzzles and come up with a phonetic parallel from seemingly nonsense clues. You’ll get a series of words that won’t seem to make sense, but are actually clues to a real phrase. The common example stated is “Know Ozark”, which is a clue for the phrase “Noah’s Ark”. Teaches kids about phonetic linguistics and word play.

Camp – Your kids pretend to go camping in a trivia board game which the parents won’t mind playing with their children.

Jumpstart – An online 3D game for kids to play calls itself “adventure based learning for kids”. Travel around the world, collect clues and solve puzzles in a graphically exciting online game. Called a “masterpiece of children’s technology” by the USA Today.

Trivia Archer – This game is a test of your math, history and science skills. Let the kids play games and learn the answer to trivia questions about their studies.

Popular Learning Games For Teens

Teenagers are going to learn from playing board games, just like the smaller children are. The games they are going to play are going to be more complex and will simulate the “real world” in some way. Many of them require some form of resource allocation or social interaction skills.

Learning Strategy Games

Strategy games are a good way for teens to learn some of the social interaction skill sets they will need for office politics and other forms of skulduggery. Think of a reality game show with a learning aspect (if that’s possible).

Risk – Astrategy game that requires a certain level of strategy and planning, but also requires social interaction. If you play with 4 to 6 players, a player will not be able to conquer the world simply through force alone. Sooner or later, that player is going to need to make an alliance. So a player who knows when to make an alliance, when to trust that ally and when to turn on that ally is going to learn important lessons about social interaction, whether they are the betrayer or the betrayed.

Diplomacy – A similar strategy game, and probably requires even great diplomatic skills. Diplomacy lets teens take on the roles of one of the 7 “Great Powers” of Europe in the year 1900. All but one side has only 3 army units, so they have to build alliances in order to succeed in the game. Because everyone in the game writes their moves down once a 15-minute social interaction phase takes place, you can promise to do one thing and then betray that promise immediately. Of course, your ally can do the same.

Resource Allocation Games

Monopoly – Believe it or not, Monopoly is a good learning tool for those who are about to go out into the career field, because it forces the players to make decisions based on “resource allocation”. You only have a certain amount of money to spend and you need to make investments of that capital wisely. When a kid can master Monopoly, that kid is going to naturally learn a few money skills.

Team Sports

I know that team sports like football and basketball have a bad reputation in movies and tv, because they portray monomaniacal coaches and neanderthal jocks who know nothing but aggression. But I’m afraid that these shows are often written by people who only saw that side of the sports world growing up.

Actually, organized team sports can teach your children not only about social interaction and discipline, but also about being a part of a team and working with others towards a common goal. Sure, there are going to be a few knuckleheads around any sporting event, but if you instruct your child and give him or her guidance and perspective during their childhood sports life, they will learn valuable life lessons while competing on the athletic field.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Board Games, Online Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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