Traditional Games = Key Learning

Sometimes teachers are always looking for the ‘latest and greatest.’  I constantly need to remind myself that often what seems old to us is NEW to a young child! Nursery rhymes teach the all-important phonemic awareness skill of rhyming. And…those games your parents and grandparents enjoyed develop necessary skills.

There are many versions of Memory available today.  You can even make a personalized game from a set of pictures. With digital cameras, it would be easy to create Memory cards showing interesting neighborhood environmental sights such as evergreen trees, deciduous trees, flowers, etc. You may want to make a Memory game that shows favorite books. There are so many possibilities!

Grandparents will likely recall the old favorite, Drop the Clothespin in the Bottle. Children still love this game! It develops hand/eye coordination in ways computers and other electronic devices cannot! 

Board games like Monopoly teach children about counting. My four year-old friend in the photo, was counting by 5s as he gave me the play 5 dollar bills! He counted the dots on the dice and moved that number on the board. He thought about strategy such as what might be best to buy. And he learned about winning and losing. What a lot of lessons!

 Sometimes games are more than games!

Standards Alignment:

NAEYC – 2.A.11

Head Start – IV.C.

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