The Power of Game Play

The Value of Game Play
Let’s look at a couple games we have had out this summer at the Mom and Dad’s Night’s Out.  We also have them out during the school year.  The two games I am going to focus on both fit with our beach theme.
Game #1  Battery operated Fishing Game where children use fishing poles to catch moving fish by putting the hook in the fishes mouth and pulling it up when the fish closes its mouth. The game can be played with 1 to 4 players of all ages. The fish are multicolored.
Option 1

• The child who caught the most fish is the winner

Option 2

• Have the children sort their fish by color.  The children then compare the amount of each color fish they caught  i.e.  Jimmy caught the most red fish but Mary caught the most yellow fish.  Who caught the most blue fish?  What color fish did you catch the most of?  Is there a color that you both caught the same amount of?

Option 3

• How many fish can you catch in 3 minutes.  Use an hourglass timer.

 
Game #2  This is a homemade game that has sea creature stickers going in a curvy line throughout a hand drawn ocean.  There is a homemade spinner made with the same sea creature stickers.  Using plastic sea creatures as markers the children simply use the spinner to move their creatures through the ocean.  The first child to get their marker to the sea cave wins.

• Lessons learned from a basic simple game like this
  • Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t
  • Visual recognition of a sea creature and applying that picture to the game board
  • You can count the spaces you have to move before you match your creature

As you can see there are always ways to expand the learning that can take place during game play.  Games also teach the valuable lesson of taking turns.  Most importantly, games are just fun to play!