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Learning through play: social and civic skills
It is still a time when we pay special attention to how to deal with change. For everyone heading to school this fall, it was at least two things. One is the question of whether we will learn remotely again, which affects home-schooling and distance-learning families to a lesser extent. The second is the transition to a competency approach. No matter how much learning affects each of us individually, board games can be a help, an inspiration, and a joy. In the following weeks, we will look at each of the learning areas separately, giving practical advice and sharing the experience of both educators and parents.
What is hidden in the bear's stomach ?
In simple terms, the social and civic learning area covers the skills to communicate, think and make decisions independently, as well as to be aware of oneself in society. Be able to say both "yes" and "no". Be able to evaluate what is happening and distinguish opinions from facts. Know how to follow the big rules of society. Be able to express yourself. Be aware of your roots. This list of skills that are so valuable in everyday life could be continued longer, but let's look at concrete examples.
A learning resource for every need
"Game solutions for education" project manager Elīna Grāvelsiņa says that she cannot imagine an industry in which it would not be possible to use board games for learning. Starting with classic games such as "Mucinas" for learning mathematics and languages, and ending with self-made games when you have already gained experience playing various store-bought games for a long time.
From Elina's point of view, board games are a very good resource because of the experience we gain while playing, because a positive experience motivates us to continue learning. With some of the games we can create a story that covers the subject to be learned. With others - to help those children who are important to compete and collect points to get excited about their studies. With others - to address children who are important to do and participate in the adventure themselves.
"The coolest thing is when you teach, and the child doesn't even realize that he is learning," says Elina.
From a teacher's point of view, board games are a tool that helps to achieve the set goals and are also perfectly compatible with the competence approach. In Elina's opinion, it could be problematic for parents to follow the goals set by the school, but if we know what we want to achieve, there will always be a solution here too.
For developing communication skills, Elina recommends choosing story-telling and cooperative games, for example:
A few more ideas for storytelling games
Rory's Story Cubes : When rolling the dice, each player has a completely different starting point, but it is each imagination that makes the game interesting and each of the stories unique. Rory's Story Cubes offers a choice between different themed versions:
Dixit : The player must choose one of his cards and describe it. After each of the other players has guessed the card that best fits that description, all the selected cards are shuffled and everyone tries to guess which card was described first. Several expansions are available for the game.
The most important thing is quality time spent together
This time we invited two mothers of large families to share their experiences in their families.
Victoria Ozola , says that playing games is also time that children can spend with their parents in a quality way, causing positive emotions that strengthen relationships:
It's wonderful if the game has some added value as well. For example, if it is a memory game, then maybe it also gives an opportunity to expand the vocabulary - it does not make sense to play a memory game in which all the words are familiar to the child (for example, cats, dogs, which the child already knows at the age of 1.5 years). It makes more sense if it has some educational added value - maybe it's geometric shapes that a child can learn, or famous works of art, like the Ravensburger History of Art Memory Game.
The child seems to be just playing a game, having a good time and not even realizing that he is learning something, and he learns easily. It has also been proven that we absorb information better and remember it better when it is associated with positive emotions. Many games are designed to develop attention, memory, concentration, reaction - these skills are useful for everyone, and they are useful in all areas, whether the game is mathematically oriented, with a language component or related to the arts.
An important thing that games develop is definitely learning to respect both losing and winning.
In every family, there are certainly familiar situations when one of the children passes out due to a loss or someone is too proud of his victory. The ability to learn both of these things can only be learned by playing and playing, and explaining by talking. This is a very important social skill - learning to accept that we can't always be winners. To rejoice and congratulate the winner, to say that he succeeded in one or the other thing perfectly. Similarly, to cheer up the loser.
Currently, our eldest sons (ages 7 and 9) and my husband are very fond of the game "Ticket to Ride" . It has strategy, geography, math, history and a lot of gambling. It's become kind of addictive now and I'm glad it's not the screens they're glued to, it's the interaction with each other, building relationships, talking, waiting their turn, developing attention and concentration and organization - the square must be both set up and then taken down.
Games for every age
Liene Abers emphasizes that each age group has its own relevant games, which sometimes allow the children themselves to become teachers:
"Our top games are chess and Scrabble . Currently, we only play chess regularly with our two oldest children, who are 7 and 10 years old. Various math games are relevant for the youngest children, which they also like to play in pairs, which gives the six-year-old sister the opportunity to assume the role of a teacher. When we play board games, we follow the original rules whenever we can, because I think it's very important to learn that as a basic principle."
To be a part of Latvia
Civic awareness is less mentioned this time, but board games can definitely be useful here as well, giving the opportunity to be together as a family, and to learn and learn a lot of new things. Therefore, we would like to conclude this article with two different games for Latvia:
"Shurpu Turpu" : a board game that invites you to rediscover Latvia. Did you know, for example, that there are underground lakes in Latvia? Using a variety of means of transportation, players compete with each other, reaching both popular and less popular locations.
"Latvija" : a factual board game that gives you the opportunity to test your knowledge of Latvia's history, geography, nature, science, culture, sports and other issues.
By the way, do you know how many board games from the Brain Games store assortment are made in Latvia?
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