Learning and Educational Games for Kids: Add some fun and adventure to your child’s learning and get the kids excited about learning. Learning games are also a great way to build important foundational skills.
For a long time, learning was about using the pen and pencil; however, it can also be a dry way to teach the kids, and at times it becomes difficult to make the kids using this traditional approach. Game based learning platforms provide parents with an alternative method that can inspire children to learn useful concepts that can help develop competencies and skills.
What skills can be gained?
While kids may have different subjects in schools, they are expected to pick up basic skills in reading, writing, math, digital literacy from a very young age. Depending on the age of the child, they will be expected to pick up skills like:
- Counting, letter recognition, reading for the younger kids
- Comprehension, writing skills, solving math equations, understanding the keyboard, basic coding, etc. for the older kids
Many parents and teachers have some reservations about using learning games for education purposes, but the fact is that these can be put to effective use be it for homeschooling, online learning or even the traditional classroom setting.
Why does it work?
Games, in general, entice kids and gets their attention, even if it is a subject that your kid may not like.
Here are more reasons why educational games for kids can be used as effective teaching tools.
- kids are already spending a lot of time on phones/tablets/computers. This screen time can be put to effective use.
- Kids like the visual environment (the graphics, the audio-visuals) provided by these educational games.
- Learning games for kids also gamify most of the topics where kids can gain points for scoring right answers
- You can find a game for almost every topic (you can pick up topics that your child is struggling in)
What Topics Can be Learnt?
Today, you can find learning games for kids on any topics/subject. However, you really don’t need to use them for all the subject. For certain subjects/topics, the traditional learning resources work best for the child.
Art Games
Art games helps children improve creativity, they can learn the basics of drawing and coloring and also access a wide range of patterns; these also help the kids complete their art homework.
While younger learners can do coloring on these games without having to use crayons and paper, it is recommended that you actually give young learners crayons or water colors and drawing paper to draw and to color, as it will help them improve their fine motor muscles, concentration and hand/eye coordination.
Older kids however have more to gain from these games as they can create complex pieces of art and showcase their skills.
You can also use games to teach music to children.
Language arts
Kids can use learning games to learn a new language (kids can learn German, French or any other language). Kids can learn grammar, they can do reading and comprehension, develop vocabulary, using games.
Mathematics
There are tons of learning games available for Math but I think that its best for the kids to learn Math from the books and worksheets provided by the school. Let them solve the sums in the school books or on the worksheets provided by the school, as theses resources are good for learning.
Science
Learning games can be great to understand various science related topics. Human body, states of matter, machines, electricity and magnetism, space, animals, are all exciting topics that can be better understood by the use of educational games.
Computers/Technology
“Soon, we’ll be teaching programming just like reading and writing…and wondering why we didn’t do it sooner,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.
Kids are expected to know the parts of a computer, the different kid of software it uses, and also acquire basic coding skills. So, learning games can really help to learn these useful concepts.
Social studies
Social studies involves learning about various topics such as environment, culture, social environments, governance, civic education and more.
Most of these can be best learnt from the resources provided by the school. However, educational games can be used to better learn more about the environment and the degradation its going through.
History
History is about learning important historical facts, civilizations, ancient Egyptian secrets, archaeology, renaissance masterpieces, world cultures, and more.
If your child loves history, you can use these games to supplement their learning, especially on topics such as ancient civilizations, renaissance masterpieces.
Geography
Geography is also a vast subject and some of the topics (such as types of maps, landforms, habitats) can be better learnt and understood using learning games.
The popular National Geographic Kids magazine also has games for kids that can be used to learn more about geography. Their website already has several educational quizzes and action-adventure games that kids will like to play.
Health and physical education
The best way for kids to get some healthy exercise is by being outdoors. Unfortunately, post-covid19, there are restrictions and as a result even physical education has now become online.
There are several learning games designed to encourage kids to dance, or do yoga, stretch, and do other exercises. I feel, these games can be avoided, and you may use the resources provided by school to teach children about healthy habits, dental hygiene and how to stay fit.
Closing Thoughts
Its important for kids to spend time regularly with their books and learning materials in order to learn new concepts and to get higher kids. As parents, you will need to provide them with the right activities and also use the right tools that will help the child to master the topic/subject.
Learning/educational games is something that you should consider using to enhance your child’s learning. Gamification of education topics encourages kids to become inquisitive about those topics, and you should convince your child to spend more of their their screen time playing educational video games for kids.
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