10 Reasons for Using Classroom Games!

Reason # 1: Games are fun with a purpose

Games create a cognitive engagement between the learner and the topic in a flowing, smiling environment. Games celebrate your topic and reward individual and group achievement. Games bring fun and energy into the learning zone.

Reason # 2: Games provide feedback to the learner

Learners want and need feedback on their performance. Games give them immediate feedback on the quality of their input- their successes and their errors.

Reason # 3: Games provide feedback to the trainer

Games provide a practice field where learners interact with the topic, demonstrating their knowledge & ability to apply the information. By observing the learner, the trainer can adjust the readings and interventions, accordingly.

Reason # 4: Games are experiential

Today's learner needs to do and to try things on their own. Games provide an environment that transforms the passive student into an active part of the learning process where she can connect her own dots and experience her own ideas.

Reason # 5: Games motivate learners

Games engage players and then motivate them to interact with the topic. This interaction drives players to demonstrate their understanding of the topic in friendly contest where successes are memorable moments of shared triumph and celebration and where mistakes mean only that the learner is being stretched to his or her own limits.

Reason # 6: Games improve team work

Games are real-time activities that bring players into teams, demonstrate the rules and roles of working together as a team, and underscore the value of team collaboration. Games give your learners a chance to know their peers as they share the same real-time experiences, allowing for strong networking and bonding.

Reason # 7: Games provide a less threatening learning environment

Because the game format is playful, the environment becomes less threatening. During the game play seemingly difficult questions and scenarios are "just part of the game."

Reason # 8: Games bring real-world relevance

Games allow you to present real-world information in the form of questions, scenarios, role-plays, & so forth. In this way, players learn not only the "what," but the "why," of the topic from a real-world perspective. Players also observe their own behavior & that of the others during game play.

Reason #9: Games accelerate learning

The visual presentation, oral interactions, and active participation of game play appeals to all of the learning styles (visual, auditory and kinesthetic), involves both the rational and the experimental mind that helps players remember what they have learned.

Reason # 10: Games give you choices for your classroom

Games allow you to add variety and flexibility to your teaching menus. They allow you to do any or all of the following:

-Vary the level of the learner involvement

-Vary the level of skill level and knowledge

-Introduce or review topics

Source: Educational Insights

LIST OF A FEW GAMES WE CARRY:

~American Trivia Board Game

~Apples to Apples

~Bananagrams (Shipment should arrive 03/18/08)

~Bingo Games (Alphabet, Real-Life Photos, Numbers, US)

~Blokus (Strategy Game)

~Blokus Trigon (Strategy Game)

~Checkers & Chess Set

~Dominoes

~Heximania (word game)

~Mancala

~Math Dash

~Math Noodlers

~Memory Matching

~Professor Noggin's Series (Trivia Games on certain subjects)

~Rush Hour

~Set

~Smart Lab Challenge Trivia Books

~Spill Your Guts (Human Anatomy Game)

~Travel Bingo

~Who? What? Where? (Drawing Game)