BGCA’s Lesa Sexton shared this great post with the Education Learning Community last month. Want more content like this, and to connect with other Club staff focused on Academic Success? Join the community!
Are you sick and tired of playing Connect Four? Is your deck of Uno cards worn to shreds? Are all the tiles on your Bananagrams, Boggle, and Scrabble games virtually unreadable from being played so much? Looking for ways to spice up your repertoire of educational games? Well look no further!
Recently the Education Team had an opportunity to test out some new educational resources and we wanted to share our reviews in case you, too, are on the hunt for new ideas of resources that can cultivate a love of learning in youth. We pulled together a panel of “play experts” (aka our colleagues who weren’t in a meeting) to help us review 4 different resources that support Academic Success while also just being plain fun to play.
Disruptus
What it is?
This game is built around the idea of “disruptive thinking” or unconventional ways of thinking. In Disruptus, players are forced to innovate new ideas by seeing everyday objects in a new light. For example, what other uses could you devise for a paperclip? What new invention could you make using a rope and a bicycle? Players pitch their ideas each round and a judge determines a winner. What wacky inventions can your youth come up with?
(Check out this quick overview of how to play.)
What age is it good for?
Ages 10 and up
What skills does it teach?
Communication, creativity, divergent thinking
How can it be used?
Disruptus would be a great game with which to open Power Hour or when transitioning between activities. It can also be easily modified to be more or less challenging by adding time limits, constraints, or even having youth make a prototype of their idea!
Available from their website or on Amazon.
Brainspin
What is it?
Brainspin is all about creative thinking. In this card game, players brainstorm all the different images they see in a simple shape. A circle, for example, could be a steering wheel, a button, the top of a coffee cup, or a pirate eye patch. What will your youth see?
What age is it good for?
Ages 7 and up
What skills does it teach?
Collaboration, creativity, perspective-taking, visual thinking
How can it be used?
Brainspin could be a great creative icebreaker or teambuilding activity. It’s a great way to start a brainstorming session, teach empathy, or build a design thinking mindset.
Available from their website or on Amazon.
Vers: The Rap Game
What is it?
In Vers: The Rap Game, players make freestyle raps by combining a set of rhyming words with a category. For example, what rap can you make about tacos using the words hate, great, and appreciate? What about a rhyme about a locket using the words with collect, reject, and perfect? A judge determines whose rhyme has the most ‘flow’. It’s like a template for rap!
What age is it good for?
Ages 9 and up
What skills does it teach?
Communication, literacy
How can it be used?
Vers could be a great game to use with teens interested in spoken word or creative writing. A certain level of vulnerability is required to be able to spit some rhymes, so facilitators must be sure to create a supportive emotional environment and allow youth to “opt in”.
Available from their website or on Amazon. They also offer a free downloadable version if you subscribe to their newsletter by email. While it won’t last as long as the purchased version, I’d suggest printing on thick cardstock for increased durability.
Zangle!
What is it?
Zangles is a game of visual perception in which players have to use their cards to form the shape on another card. They can flip, twist, or rotate their cards to make a match (“Zangle”).
What age is it good for?
Ages 6 and up
What skills does it teach?
Cognitive flexibility, shapes, visual-spatial reasoning
How can it be used?
Zangles is a great game to support younger youth with shape and pattern recognition. It could be a fun activity to use with youth that finish their homework early or as a way to reinforce math concepts youth are learning in school.
Available from their website or on Amazon.
Have you played any of these games? What other Educational board games do you love to play at the Club? Let us know by commenting below, on the BGCA Youth Development Facebook page, or by emailing Education@bgca.org.
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