Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Family Game Night

I am one of those people who grew up playing board games at home. With three older sister's there was always someone to play a game with; whether it be Monopoly, Sorry, Parcheesi, UNO, Battleship or Clue.

Well, 25 years later all these games are still around and children still love 'em! Children love all types of games, but unfortunately much of their time after school is spent filled with tutoring lessons, religious studies, sports, video games and TV. They often do not have a minute of "free time."

Board games can be educational and fun. Many games develop fine motor coordination, visual motor/perceptual skills, memory, problem solving, mathematical reasoning, and spelling skills.

So, why not have "Family Game Night" every week or at least once a month?

To get you started, I started to compile a list of games that school age children always enjoy. Many of these I have used in therapy and they are "kid approved!"



Of course not all games can be found in Cairo, so why not ask local distributors if they can start ordering some of these games? All of these games can be found online and many can also be ordered through Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/.




YAHTZEE

TWISTER



SCRABBLE


LITE BRITE


JENGA



CONNECT FOUR




BOGGLE




CHUTES AND LADDERS/CANDY LANE


RUSH HOUR




SHAPE BY SHAPE



ZINGO



GAME CLUB by Think Fun: A place where children learn problem solving skills while having fun. Check out the teachers guide at:





http://www.thinkfun.com/teachers_guide.pdf





OUT OF THE BOX PUBLISHING: http://www.otb-games.com/



SQUINT: have players guess the word, while you construct the picture with shapes on cards.



BLINK: kids love this visual perceptual, fast paced card game!



MY WORD: an excellent card game to build on a child's spelling skills!


No comments: