I rarely bother with the rules in the games I use. Some of those supposedly designed for seven year olds have instructions which resemble those for building your own house from scratch. Mostly I find, it is the boards, cards and equipment that are useful for adapting to the needs of my students.
So here goes, a few off the top of my head:
Monopoly
Who doesn’t love Monopoly money? Make a mini catalogue from the Argos one by cutting out and sticking things which will appeal to your child. Give them prices which accord with what you want to practise. For example, if you want to practise counting in fives, give the items prices which are 5, 10,15, 20, 25 etc. Split the pile of £5 notes between you, take turns to choose something and find the right number of notes to pay for it. If your child choose a bike for £15 they have to count out three notes. You can do the same with the £1s and £10s. Or practise one more/one less by saying there is a mistake in the catalogue and all prices are £1 more or less. Your child can work out the correct price then find the notes they need.
Snakes and Ladders
A game which never seems to end! Quicken it up by multiplying each dice throw by two, or three.
Magnetic fishing games
These only ever seem to be used for counting to ten. Make your own fish from paper and attach them to paper clips. Put numbers 10s numbers and units on them and lay face down, fish for two numbers at a time. Add your two numbers together. Let the other player/players have a go whoever has the highest score (and adds its correctly) gets 1 point. Play ten times to see who will win.
Or write key words on paper and cut in half (splitting them after the onset – pl/ay, thr/ee, b/ig, w/ent). Take turns to fish and try to catch a whole word in two goes. Person who finds the most correctly wins.
Scrabble
Roll a dice and make words with that many letters, take turns.
Put out four rows of four letters in a cube (or more depending on the age of your child). See how many words you can make. They all count so long as the letters are touching in some way (such as at corners) , they don’t have to be in straight lines.
Make spelling words with the letters. Challenge your child to shut their eyes and then work out which letters you have removed or swapped around. Let them do the same for you.
Make words and change a letter each, in turn, to make new words – silly ones are allowed for younger children. Just laugh and say ‘Jat is a funny word, I’ve never heard of one of those – have you?!’
Have an alphabet race. The person who can put all the letters of the alphabet in order first wins (just make sure you have enough of every letter for each player!).
1970’s card game ‘My Word’
Deal five (or ten) cards each. Take one from the main pile and place face up on the table. Players take turns to place ANY one of their cards next to another to make a word and get points. Encourage them to look for the highest scoring combination. Record each score and add up total at end. Beware though, this game can get highly competitive. Also, if there are two cards and you can fit a card in the middle which will make say two words and one gobble-de-gook word, allow it. But they only get points for the real words made.
Hungry Hippos
Assign set points to the balls – each one worth say 2 or 5. So if you get ten balls, that’s two points each so you can count up 2,4,6,8,10. A fun way to practise times table concepts informally.
Guess Who
Choose a character and write a profile for them. Where do they live? What colour socks do they wear? Take turns to ask a question and have the other person answer it. Have some fun! Maybe create whole families and stories about them.
I’m sure there are a hundred more, just let me think on it….
littleshoots is loving:
Magnetic gel boards. They have little pens which go with them and only work well if you don’t press too hard. You can rub out with pressure from your fingers. Great for practising handwriting with the under confident or those struggling with fine motor skills
Mellisa and Doug puzzles
Especially the one with door and window fastening which I have been coveting since seeing it at a friend’s house!
A new section : The three,make it four,make it five, no make it six, Rs!
What teachers should apparently be teaching in schools alongside traditional subjects. This is just to see, over time, how many different calls for teaching in schools there are. If you spot one let me know!
This time it is Facebook safety
learningfromtheleftside 