Cooperative Board Games

   

I ordered these board games online recently. They are cooperative games by Peaceable Kingdom. The good thing about these games is that all the players work as one team to achieve a goal which I think is a very unique concept. Games like these build team spirit and cooperation among children.

You can find these games on Amazon or Hopscotch.com 
Are there any board games you would like to suggest/recommend for this post?  I look forward to hearing back from you.  

Imagination

Yesterday I took my daughter downstairs to play in my building’s garden. There were a few children whom my daughter plays with once in a while. As soon as they met, they started figuring out what to play. My daughter, like many other children, loves to make up her own games. She came up with a game that one of them will become an alligator and someone will have to carry the alligator on her back and help it cross the river and there would be obstacles on the way that they will have to overcome. A seven- year old instantly discarded her idea saying that it doesn’t make sense and that how can anyone carry an alligator on her back. It was rather heartbreaking to hear this comment and to see that this child has probably never been allowed to imagine. For the good of this child and my daughter, I had to intervene and tell her that this was imagination and one can have fun being imaginative. 

Journal Writing

Maintaining a journal for your child is a simple and effective tool for early literacy development. You can start using it as soon as she starts holding a crayon and scribbling (as early as 1 and a half or 2 years of age). All you need is a plain notebook preferably A4 or A3 size. As she makes marks in the book, ask her what it is and write down the words or sentences next to the drawings. (Don’t restrict her to the thick crayons. Let her explore drawing with markers, pencils, pens, coloured pencils etc.) You will see how her ideas progress from words to sentences to stories. 

Seeing you write, will motivate her to attempt writing down the words herself with scribbles or letters. Depending on her age, phonemic awareness (awareness that words can be broken down into sounds) and phonic skills (ability to associate sounds with letters of the alphabet) she will write the words with initial, medial and ending sounds (developmental/ phonetic/ invented spellings). For example initially she might write just the letter ‘a’ to say apple, then ‘al’, then apl and so on. Please remember not to criticize her drawings, stories or her spellings. Just accept and support no matter how silly they are. It’s the start of big ideas!

The journal should be used as a motivation and confidence building tool for literacy development and not for attaining perfection in handwriting or spellings, although good handwriting and spellings would be the byproducts of it. Apart from enhancing reading and writing skills, journal writing is also great for promoting fine motor skills and vocabulary development.

Conflict Resolution contd...

Situation 1 Constructivist way of dealing with this conflict

• Don’t interfere in the beginning.
• If it reaches a point that the children begin to physically battle for the piece, immediately interfere.
• Maintain your calm and don’t show any anxiety.
• Begin questioning both G and D. Help them develop a shared focus of attention so that all the parties know what problem they would be discussing about.
• Comfort G who is crying uncontrollably.
• Ask questions like ‘What happened?’, ‘Who was playing first?’, and ‘Who broke the piece?’ Make sure you hear both sides of story.
• Hopefully and most probably D will admit that he broke the piece.
•  You can say, ‘D, G is feeling really sad right now and he is crying, what can we do to make him feel better?’ and ‘What can we do to solve this problem?’
• You can ‘suggest’ that they need to do something to fix the broken piece.
• In this way you validate the emotional feelings involved in the situation.
• Hopefully G will come up with ideas like taping it up or you can suggest.
• Help D tape up the two pieces.
• Then ‘casually’ tell them that if a situation like this arise in future, it is best to wait turns or use words to negotiate how the game has to be played and if you can’t come to an agreement you can get an adult.

Situation 1 Analysis

• The process here is: 1.Identification of conflict 2.Comforting the hurt child 3.Working towards its solution.
• D got a chance to restore his relationship with G and his own self-esteem.
• D didn’t feel that he was a bad person instead he felt good about himself that he had mended the broken piece and made G feel better.
•  G was happy that you recognized his concerns and comforted him and D did something to make him feel better.

Hence, none of the children carried negative feelings for the other. Instead, it made the bond of friendship stronger between them.

Conflict Resolution

In early childhood development, conflicts that the child has with her peers are viewed as learning experiences and opportunities for social, emotional and cognitive development. According to Jean Piaget, who developed the constructivist theory of child development, children are egocentric by nature in their early years (0 to 6) and can’t think anything beyond themselves. For them everything must revolve around their needs and wants. For this reason, they often have innumerable conflicts with other children who are equally egocentric. 

At this stage the role of the adult is to support the children and help them see the other’s points of view. They are not going to start considering others’ perspectives easily as it’s simply not in their cognitive ability to do so, but the patience, empathy and support from caring adults will help them transition from egocentric stage to the social stage a little more smoothly.

The two points that need to be kept in mind while helping children resolve their conflicts are:

·      Children need to develop healthy feelings of community, satisfaction and self-esteem.

·      Children need to be given ownership, responsibility and empowerment to come up with their own solutions.

Over a few days I would relate to you vignettes from my work and observation of children and provide constructive ways of dealing with their conflicts.

Situation 1 (What would you do?)

• G was playing by himself on the carpet with a game called ‘Pirate Ship’. He was connecting different parts of the ship and balancing the pirates on its deck.
• D wanted to join him and wasn’t ready to wait his turn. He wanted to have all the pieces of the boat and wanted G to submit to his ways of playing which G wasn’t prepared for.
• Seeing G playing in a way that D thought wasn’t right, he tried to pull a piece from him and both of them began shouting.
• The piece broke into two and G started crying.

Homework

If we want our children to have a healthy attitude towards homework, we need to start changing our own attitude towards it. I have noticed many teachers and parents celebrate when there is no homework given. Step back and think what you are conveying to the children. You are making them think, ‘homework is a task’, ‘homework is something that is not fun’ and ‘the days you don’t get homework are the best days’!

The children are so malleable at young age that you can really mold their personality and more importantly their attitude towards things. Try being excited about homework in front of them and they will be more motivated to attempt it. And again basic principles of how to deal with children apply- don't make it look like a task and don’t leave them alone to do it. In my class, the days I don’t give homework, I apologize to my students that I couldn’t organize for any, and I would definitely have some ready for them soon. My students think that it is a privilege to get homework, they enjoy doing it and I never have late submissions!

The Joy of Creating

Instead of sending your child to the structured art classes in your neighbourhood, which claim to enhance creativity but in fact restrict it, try keeping a box of material that she can manipulate, mix and match and make something out of, within her reach.

(For classrooms and homes)

The Creativity Box may consist of stationery items such as:

• child-friendly scissors of different kinds including the zigzag ones
• liquid glue and sticks
• scotch tape, colourful tapes
• blu-tack
• stampers of different designs
• stapler
• paperclips
• stickers
• paintbrushes, paints
• colourful pens, glitter pens, felt pens, crayons, pencils, erasers
• coloured paper- butter paper, construction paper, tracing paper, cardboard paper

And material such as:

• old cds
• old greeting cards and envelopes
• ribbons
• yarn- cotton and wool
• used toilet paper and towel rolls
• egg cartons
• popsicle sticks
• seashells, pistachio shells
• pencil shavings
• sequins
• cotton wool
• empty soap and paste boxes
• anything that may be waste material could be included

How to do it:

You can spread a mat and sit down with your child, with the material in front of you. Allow her to do it herself, choose what she wants to do and take little risks. Try not criticizing or telling her that that’s not the way you draw or cut, this is not a triangle, let me show you and other such comments that might be discouraging and demeaning. If it’s not a proper circle, let it go. Focus on process and not the product. Don’t aim for perfection. Let it be fully open-ended. You can suggest ideas but don't make it seem like a task.

Gently encourage her to do it herself. At times she will ask you to do something for her like draw a circle, then just draw it out for her instead of saying I want you to do it.  Plus she might have the inhibition to do it because others may have told her she can’t do it. She will watch you do it and next time she will try it out herself. Remember to balance it out.

Appreciate whatever little or ridiculous thing she creates. Be specific with your praise. For example, say something like ‘I liked the colours you have used’ instead of saying ‘it’s very good’. So the child believes that you are genuine in your praise. Put up her artwork around your house. It could be anything from just a square paper with coloured tape stuck on it to a 3D mobile.

Don’t discard her artwork in front of her. After a few days you can discard them but do it discreetly.


Benefits of it:

• builds self-confidence
• enhances fine-motor skills
• enhances attention span and engagement
• builds language skills (conversational and descriptive language, sentence structure, vocabulary, etc.)
• enhances sequencing ability- what did you do first, what did you do next, etc
• children start seeing waste material in a new light- teaches concepts of recycling, reducing and reusing
• enhances estimation abilities- for e.g. how long a ribbon will I need to cover the edges of the picture frame I am making, how much liquid glue will I need to stick this piece of paper onto the cardboard
• children become aware of properties of different material like butter paper, corrugated sheet, bubble paper, popsicle sticks, cotton wool etc.
• children  understand that some materials can undergo change and some can’t, for example, cotton wool will look different if you soak it in water but a plastic bottle cap will remain the same.

   So you see just a simple tool can cover so many subjects- Language, Math, Science, Environmental Science, Visual Arts and enhance the child's confidence.