Fun & Games

In this season of family gatherings and gift giving, here are a few recommendations of fun games that help develop and practice a variety of skills. By encouraging children to think strategically and plan ahead, and to attach abstract thoughts to concrete objects, many games aid in the development of more-sophisticated thinking skills. Playing games also helps children with social interactions, learning to take turns, to follow rules and to win and lose gracefully. Playing games with kids shows we love spending time with them; we are demonstrating our values and making memories.

Jeanne has been teaching some math games that can be played with minimal equipment, usually dice or a deck of cards. Ask your child to teach you how to play Pyramid Tens, Addition Swirl or Pig.

Some old favorite card games can be adapted to practice math facts; just remove the face cards from the deck and play fish or memory match with pairs that equal 10 or any other target number. In class, we play war with each player flipping over 2 cards and the player with the largest sum wins the battle.

We have several commercial games in the classroom that the students have been enjoying.

One favorite is Set, a game of visual perception that is entertaining for the whole family. (My kids got it for Chanuka more than 20 years ago, and we still play it.)Another is Racko, a classic card game that focuses on number sequencing. (Sandy remembers playing this in 4th grade during indoor recess.)A game we'll be introducing soon is Blockus, a challenging spatial and strategy game that can be enjoyed by the whole family.Some games are perfect for those long car rides; 24 can be played by 1 or several players and only requires the deck of cards.

Second graders will also enjoy traditional games like Pictionary, Scrabble, Yahtzee, checkers, chess, Mastermind. And the time spent together is probably the best gift of all!