Traditional Outdoor Games for Kids – How to Have Fun in the Sun

As a parent, you may have long suspected what recent studies have confirmed – kids aren’t playing outside as much as they used to when you were a kid. While this in itself isn’t very alarming, the same cannot be said of the extent to which it is true! According to researchers, kids on an average play outside for only half the amount of time their counterparts of a few decades ago did. In fact, a study revealed that children would rather spend time on an electronic device, do household chores or complete homework than play outdoor games for kids! Further, one in three children do not know how to play a game of hopscotch!

Photo by Dean McCoy Photography

Photo by Dean McCoy Photography

Perhaps it is too late to change the way kids in society spend their free time, but you can still do your bit to helping your child play more outdoor games for kids. Remember the simple yet delightful outdoor games you used to play in your childhood? Teach them to your kids and play along with them to encourage them to spend more time outside. Here’s a quick refresher in case your memory’s getting slightly rusty.

Traditional Outdoor Games for Kids

      1.  Hide-and-Seek: It’s highly unlikely that you don’t remember how to play this game, but it’s worth mentioning in the list of must-try kids’ games. One person is “it”, and counts to a pre-decided number with eyes covered while all the other players rush to find a good hiding spot for themselves where they won’t be discovered. Once the time is up, the player who is “it” attempts to find all the others. There are many variations to this popular kids’ game. Of course this is often played indoors as well, but playing it outdoors is more challenging, fun, and offers a lot more running space.

 

      2.  Hopscotch: This one’s dedicated to those children who have never experienced the joy of playing this fun sidewalk game. Kids use a sidewalk chalk to draw a hopscotch grid, numbered from 1 to 9 (or 10, depending on the grid pattern). There are many ways to draw the grid, all of them including a combination of single and double squares one above the other. Players find a medium sized stone to use in the game and then take turns to do the following: throw the stone on ‘1’, hop over the stone and then on each subsequent number to the end of the grid using one or two legs (depending on the layout of the grid), turn around and hop back to the beginning, stopping at ‘2’ to bend and pick up the stone before hopping to the beginning. The player continues by throwing the stone on ‘2’ in the next round, and so on. The player’s turn ends when any of the steps are done incorrectly. 

      3.   Shadow Tag: Most people know how to play the kids’ game tag. This one is a fun variation perfect for a sunny day. One player is designated “it” and attempts to chase and tag the shadow of the other players with his/her foot. The first player to be tagged is the new “it” and the game continues until the kids are too tired to continue running around.

     4.    Capture the Flag: Players are split into two teams and each team has a flag or marker at their base. The object of this outdoor game for kids is to try and capture the other team’s flag and bring it back to the home team without getting caught. Players standing in “enemy” territory can be “jailed” if they are tagged by a member of the other team. “Jailed” players can be released if a teammate manages to run to the other side, tag the “jailed” player and return to the home team without getting caught. 

With these fun outdoor games for kids, parents can encourage their children to spend more time outdoors and perhaps even convince interested onlookers to join in the fun!

What to Expect from Online Kindergarten Worksheets

Once the fun and games of preschool are over, it is time to take up school more seriously. While preschool readies them for what is to come in the higher grades, kindergarten can actually be likened to the proverbial (and crucial) first rung of the ladder. If your kids have moved on to kindergarten, chances are you have already familiarized yourself with a few learning resources other than the state prescribed textbooks. The most common among all the resources available to teachers and home-schooling parents are online worksheets. If you are a first timer and have no experience with kids and schooling, it is not uncommon to find yourself debating whether to use the freely available worksheets or not. Questions like, “Are kindergarten worksheets for us?” or “Should I trust the readily available online kindergarten worksheets?” can be heard resounding in the living rooms of many houses with young kids. The easiest way to answer those questions is to know what one can expect from such resources.

So what can one expect from these free, printable kindergarten worksheets available all over the internet? We help you find out!

Practice, Practice, Practice

We have all heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect” and there isn’t an iota of untruth to it. The more we practice, the better we get at anything. When it comes to learning anything, this fact cannot be stressed more. Kindergarten worksheets are the perfect practice material. They are free and easily available and most of these online worksheets are easy-to-download PDFs. All you need to do is print out a handful of them and get the little ones started. 

Micro Approach to Learning – Scoring Over Regular Textbooks

Online kindergarten worksheets score over regular textbooks as the exercises available in textbooks are limited, but when it comes to online worksheets, the sky is the limit. The huge number of material available on each topic allows kids to adopt a micro approach to learning, perfecting each step before moving on to the next. This ensures there are no grey areas left. For example, kindergarteners are taught single-digit addition in school. Whether or not your kids have mastered counting, the pace at which the curriculum is being taught in school will not be altered. Hence, teachers will move on to addition even before each student has had the chance to master the previous step. This can be a problem as kids are often forced to move ahead without being absolutely clear with the previous concept. This is when you should definitely opt to introduce kindergarten worksheets. With continued practice at home, kids will be able to master counting before moving on to addition and other skills being taught in school.

Time for Fun – No Compromises There

Sure, kindergarten might be more serious than preschool but it is nowhere as strict as first grade is. If you have heard rumors like kindergarten is nothing like the good old days, don’t let that bother you. Just run a google search for kindergarten worksheets and you will know. For this grade, the online resources are full of fun things to do, pretty pictures to look at and ‘fun while you learn’ kind of activities that will put the zing in studies and make your kindergarteners reach out for them.

Now that you know what to expect from kindergarten worksheets, will you opt for them? The answer is pretty obvious – they are your go-to resources if you want to make learning easy and fun for the little ones. Good luck!

How to Win the Spelling – Fun English Games Show the Way

Spelling competitions are an annual feature in most schools around the country. Many students dread these events and are glad to be eliminated in the early rounds, but some enthusiastic spellers study dedicatedly for months, hoping to participate in the National Spelling Bee. Many kids who enjoy spelling and English games have been stung by the Spelling Bee at least once, but make no mistake; the National Spelling Bee is as rigorous a test of your intellectual measure as any math or science Olympiad. So here are 3 useful tips to get you started on the path to spelling glory.

5 Tips to Win the Spelling Bee

1.    Read, read, read

That’s what a toddler building his basic vocabulary does and that’s what an aspiring Spelling Bee winner needs to do. Try and read as much and as many genres as you can – poetry, fiction, biographies, news – and anything else you can think of. A voracious reader encounters strange words in unexpected places and if you make the effort to master new spellings you stand a better-than-average chance of winning the spellathon. Reading a dictionary might be a tad boring compared to reading fiction, but it’s a good way to memorize unfamiliar words. The organizers of the National Spelling Bee usually announce which dictionary will be used because dictionaries sometimes spell certain words differently.

2.    Play English games

English games that teach kids to spell have three important benefits:

• They are interesting enough to hold players’ interests and motivate them.
• They enable players to compete on equal footing with other players of varying spelling skills.
• They expose players to a wider variety of words and spellings than they would otherwise encounter.

English games such as word sorting help kids to develop their proofreading skills and train them to notice the important features of the words they need to study in order to win spelling championships. Word hunting is another useful English game that encourages players to actively engage in searching for new words that they need to learn.

3.    Deduce the spelling

The official Spelling Bee rules allow contestants to ask a certain number of questions before attempting to spell it. If you are unfamiliar with the word, you are allowed to ask what part of speech it is, its language of origin, how it is used in a sentence and its pronunciation. Knowing the etymology (or origins) of a word and the language it comes from can make all the difference between winning and losing.When the pronouncer pronounces a word, you may not get all the clues you need to spell it, but if you are aware of spelling patterns of all the major languages, you stand a good chance of cracking the Bee. You might also want to play English games to build your repertoire of root words.

As with most ambitious goals, winning the National Spelling Bee is all about building upon your existing knowledge of words and taking small steps to enhance it.

Help Kids Learn with Reading Games

Reading Games Enhance Memory and Reading Skills

‘Reading’ is a versatile word – not because of its many erudite applications but because of its multiple cognitive and therapeutic benefits. Introduction to alphabets is the preliminary stage of learning which eventually helps kids to read independently. The online space is filled with a myriad of reading games that help kids to better their reading skills, besides enhancing their memory. Reading is often defined as ‘an action or skill of reading written or printed matter silently or aloud’. To help kids read ‘printed matter silently or aloud’ without adults’ assistance, online reading games are slowly making their way into the classroom. 

How Can Reading Games Enhance Memory? 

A Johns Hopkins study found that parents who taught kids for a continuous period of six months developed sharper cognitive skills – a theory that also applies to kids who are new to reading. Kids who play reading games online show promising signs of better grades at the end of their sessions. Reading requires detailed study of letters and alphabets which get captured in the brain as images. The habit of reading is often related to English as a subject but it gets extended to the learning graph of other subjects as well – reading is not only an English activity, it’s an activity that helps kids to learn other subjects too, while enhancing their memory. ‘Reading to learn’ and ‘learning to retain’ are two poles of our cognitive processes that help strengthen human memory. The effort kids put in to read repeatedly so that they can retain important points has a positive effect on the brain. Online reading games are formulated in such a way that they require kids to read, retain and recollect. 

How are Reading Skills Enhanced with Reading Games? 

JumpStart.com, PBS Kids.org, Coolmath-games.com, Educationworld.com offer a wide range of reading games for kids that help them learn while playing. 

Story Land is a preschool game offered by JumpStart that encourages preschool kids to learn and explore while having fun! Story Land is a fantastic reading game that introduces kids to reading. Kids have to read the instructions in order to complete tasks without them even realizing that they are learning while playing! 

Letter Sounds Match-Up is a reading game hosted by PBS Kids that introduces kids to the sounds of words and helps them identify alphabets. It’s a flash card game where preschool kids have to identify a visual pictorial card that starts with a letter on the other cards. While helping kids to read, it also enhances their memory and retention power. 

Coolmath-Games hosts a wonderful reading game for kids called The Alphabetizer. Preschool kids have to read the alphabets that appear on screen and place them into round slots, arranging them in alphabetical order. A wrong arrangement prompts an action that places the alphabets in the right order helping kids to learn and read the letters in the suggested order.

The Social Benefits of Kids’ Games

If you are buying a gift for your kids, computer games most likely top their wish list. But aren’t online kids games supposed to be violence-ridden mind candy that rot kids’ brains and turn them into asocial zombies?  At least, that’s what received wisdom says about computer games. And since parents tend to focus more on the potential dangers than the possible benefits of anything that affects their child, it is natural to ignore the fact that online kids’ games are a normal part of 21st century childhood. In fact, many parents automatically assume that computer games are bad for their child.

But the truth of the matter is, you – the parent – can actually use computer games as a powerful tool to help your child develop several crucial life skills. Over the last few years, researchers have been studying the emotional, mental and social effects of gaming and have come up with surprising results – computer games have a number of social benefits that largely go unnoticed in the deluge of media reports about the downsides of kids’ games.

Kids’ Games and Social Skills – Perception or Reality

Here are some of the social benefits associated with online kids’ games:

• Cooperation

According to statistics, about 62% of online gamers prefer to play with others. These findings run contrary to popular perception that online games promote asocial behavior among kids. In fact, research shows that an increasingly greater number of online kids’ games are designed to encourage kids to be more cooperative. Players are expected to develop leadership skills, delegate responsibility and work as part of a team. Even violent computer games reward players who control their aggressiveness, keep a cool head and cooperate with others.

• Increased social interaction

Players get hooked to kids’ games because of their rich storylines and the lure of mental challenges, but what makes gaming hugely popular is the opportunity to socialize with like-minded individuals. Many kids build casual as well as meaningful friendships with fellow gamers during the time they spend playing multiplayer games and through online game communities. Avid gamers say that chatting with competitors or partners as they play adds to their enjoyment of the game, lends a sense of camaraderie and prevents the game from becoming predictable and monotonous. Kids who partner up with a fellow gamer tend to experience greater satisfaction when they overcome a difficult challenge during game play.

• Staying connected

An oft-overlooked benefit of online kids’ games communities is that they offer players a chance to stay connected within existing real-world relationships as well. When your child’s friends or family members live miles away, staying connected can be challenging. But now, cousins or uncles and nephews or even grandparents and grandchildren can talk about the day as they battle it out over a fun online game.

And that’s how kids’ games have managed to redefine the social lives of players!

Online Kids Games Can Benefit Dyslexic Kids

Having a child diagnosed with dyslexia can be a traumatic experience for parents. If you are one of them, you have trawled through the internet hundreds of times and talked to teachers and therapists for ways to help your child overcome the condition. But wading through traditional dyslexia programs and treatments can be a bit overwhelming at times. And most kids tire of them after a while. 

That, of course, does not mean your child’s unique educational needs should be ignored – there are plenty of alternative options to help kids with dyslexia cope with it without being pigeon-holed. And the newest kid on the block, as far as dyslexia therapy is concerned, is kids games online. Yes, you read it right.

What Are the Benefits of Kids Games Online?

This may come as a surprise. Computer games have long been blamed for being a bad influence on kids, but recent studies find that they actually have a beneficial effect on those with dyslexia. In fact, it has been discovered that playing online kids’ games for a few hours daily could be more effective in treating dyslexia than months of conventional classroom teaching.

Dyslexic kids who played computer games for 12 hours saw a significant improvement in their reading speed and ability to concentrate. This is a significant finding because dyslexic kids read very slowly and constantly struggle with reading comprehension.

These results far exceed those achieved by dyslexic kids enrolled in highly grueling treatment programs. Kids are certainly going to love these findings!

Italian researchers say that action-based online games hold kids’ visual attention and enable them to extract more information from the environment. This allows kids to perform better on tests, probably because their minds are more focused after playing the game.

However, it is too soon to say whether online computer games are directly responsible for improving dyslexia in kids or how long the results might last. It is also unclear whether playing online games is a better treatment approach for dyslexia than conventional ones. In other words, playing online kids’ games without any kind of supervision or control is not advisable. Also, parents are cautioned against using online games as a DIY therapy for their child’s dyslexia, though it is perfectly alright to use it along with conventional therapies.

But if there ever was a therapy that dyslexic kids would definitely love, online kids’ games would be it!

Indoor Games for Preschoolers

Preschoolers can be a hard-to-please bunch, especially when forced to keep themselves occupied indoors. Factors like rain, snow, etc., constrain movements of these little ones, forcing them to stay cooped up inside. Often, parents of preschoolers and teachers dealing with them are seen struggling with the challenge of keeping them engaged for long periods of time. If you are one of them, here’s hope! We offer 3 interesting preschool games to keep the little ones engaged inside for hours on end.

Preschoolers are steady on their feet. It is during this year that they begin to discover the joys of jumping, skipping, hopping, and running, and our fun kids’ games ideas make the best of this. Use these games for someone’s birthday bash or if it’s a rainy/snowy day or anytime you find yourself with a bunch of enthusiastic preschoolers. It is quite possible that you will be reminded of your own childhood and be tempted to be a part of these fun indoor preschool games.

• Touchy Feely Preschool Games – If you expect your preschooler to stay indoors, occupy herself with meaningful tasks, and not make as much as a peep, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Let go off such unrealistic expectations. Sometimes, a little chaos (that is still under control) can be a good idea. Our first indoor preschool game suggestion can get a little chaotic, but it is a wonderful sensory experience for your little one. Fill a few bowls with textured objects. There is no limit to what you can put in those bowls. Usually, peeled grapes, peeled tomatoes/plums, salt, etc., are good ideas. Blindfold your preschooler and let her touch the contents of each bowl. The idea is to get her to describe what she feels and then guess what it could be
• Hop Skip Preschool Games – While games of all kinds are equally loved by preschoolers, ones involving jumping, running, and squealing get the maximum number of votes. In-Out is one such game that has generous dollops of these attributes. Make your living room the game area by removing all unsafe objects like furniture with sharp edges, things that one could trip on, etc. Use a long ribbon or rope and place it on the floor. Ask the preschoolers (the more the merrier) to stand on one side of the ribbon/rope. Name one side of the rope In and the other side Out. Whenever you scream ‘In’, the kids are supposed to jump over to the side labeled In and when you sound ‘Out’, they have to jump back to the side labeled Out. As kids get familiar with this game, quicken your pace as you call out In and Out. Don’t just alternate between In and Out. You can even call three Outs or two Ins in a row to confuse the kids. The kid that jumps over to the wrong side loses his chance to play. The winner is the one who survives the confusion till the end
• Dance Freeze Preschool Games – This fun kids’ game will also require some space. Once again, clear a room off furniture with sharp edges and other knick knacks that block movement or might make the kids trip. Use a computer or a music player and play your preschooler’s favorite songs in high volume. Get them to dance or jump to their heart’s content until the music stops as you hit pause. When the music stops, kids have to freeze in whatever position that they are in and hold it for 5 seconds. Then, play the music again. The winner is the one who can hold these positions the longest.

Why Online Educational Games are a Boon for Parents

Getting kids to sit down to complete homework is nothing short of a Herculean task for many parents. Imagine getting the little ones to spend some more time on practicing what was already taught in the classroom! For many parents, evenings are spent chasing the kids around the house to get them to sit in one place for some study time. It’s never a problem sitting down in front of the idiot box or the computer screen, but when books are involved, it’s an entirely different story. 

Fret not, there’s a solution to all these woes! Online educational games are gradually becoming the new-age parent’s best friend. Why, you wonder? Read on to know about the magical advantages that these online games offer parents.

Advantages of Online Educational Games

1. Ideal Mix of Fun and Learning

This is probably the most obvious and popular feature that parents has parents gunning for these games. There are a plethora of educational games online, and almost all of them strike a healthy balance between being enjoyable and instructive. With exciting visuals and challenging levels, kids are motivated to do their best to progress in the game, using all their classroom lessons in the process. Many times, the little ones do not even realize that they sharpening skills in a variety of subjects and topics as they play these games! 

2. Practice Perfect

If you think that homework completed correctly and on time is enough to get your kids to master a topic, think again. It takes regular practice and revision for kids to feel confident about any topic. But getting them to spend additional practice time after completing homework can be a nightmare! Online educational games come to the rescue here. There are several kinds of games to be found online. Depending on the topic in question and the grade your kids are in, pick a game and encourage them to play it. Kids will get the practice they need and you’ll be a smiling, content parent. 

3. Productively Occupied

It’s almost impossible to keep kids gleefully engaged in productive activities. If the activities are fun, they’re seldom productive, and if they’re productive, kids mostly find them boring. With online educational games, the task of keeping kids productively occupied has become relatively easy! Since most kids enjoy gaming time, they’ll be more than happy to spend free time playing these games, and as parents, you’ll be satisfied knowing that even though your child is busy playing, the learning doesn’t stop!

4. Safety First

There are many kinds of games online, and not all of them are safe for kids. But if the games have educational content, more often than not they have good safety measures in place. So if your kids are sitting down to play educational games, chances of untoward incidents related to cybercrimes are greatly reduced. But always do take the time out to check the websites that your kids frequent. You can never be too safe!

5. Bonding Time

What could be better than participating in fun activities that your kids enjoy the most? Show the little ones that there’s more to you than homework, healthy eating, and exercise! As you spend time with kids playing educational games online, you not only have fun and bond with your kids but also encourage them to choose and play games that offer educational value. 

With all the advantages that educational games offer, they are certainly a boon for parents! Browse through some online games immediately and get your kids hooked on them!

Educational Games vs. Traditional Learning – The Differences

Can educational games ever replace traditional teaching methods? Probably not. But they can certainly be an effective and more practical approach to learning and help offset the limitations of classroom teaching methodologies. Research suggests that while online kids’ games might not be as effective as traditional learning, those based on Game-based Learning (GBL) approaches motivate students and help them learn better. So before you impound your child’s Xbox, learn how it makes learning material more accessible and education more relevant . And also why gaming literacy is now considered to be important enough for schools to incorporate it in their curriculum.

Educational Games-based Learning – Why it Works

Try and deconstruct the fun in any good computer or video game – it all boils down to the same thing -the integrated learning process that is as subtle as it is effective. A player can only progress in an educational game when he masters certain skills or logic – while he is actively engaged with beating the game his mind is experiencing the pleasure of figuring out a new system. This is true even if the game is considered to be pure ‘entertainment’ such as Angry Birds. Classroom learning, on the other hand, often feels dull and passive – that’s because kids are being engaged or challenged as much as they should be. Learning is synonymous with acquiring the skills and thought processes required to handle and respond to a variety of situations but most forms of traditional learning are little more than rote memorization.

On the other hand, a well-designed educational game for kids targets specific learning goals to motivate highly-engaged learners to apply the problem-solving skills to real world problems. In fact, the same factors that contribute to the success of Call of Duty are also the ones that help create ideal learning environments for students.

Online Educational Games for Kids – The Top Benefits 

These are some of the top reasons why your child should play virtual educational games:

1. Online Educational Games can retain kids’ notoriously short attention spans far longer than classroom teaching sessions. 
2. Most computer games apply relevant educational principles to foster important skills such as motor skills, cognitive strategy, verbal information and intellectual skills. 
3. Kids’ educational games online have a proven record of increasing students’ motivational levels and making them master skills far more quickly than traditional teaching methodologies.
4. Computer games are particularly skilled in promoting a positive attitude among players towards the topic they engage with thus increasing their knowledge about it. 

Educational Games for Kids – The Final Analysis 

Children’s learning games have a number of well-documented and proven benefits – however, this does not mean that classroom learning and traditional teaching methodologies are redundant and should be done away with. Computer games can never replace teachers but they can be used to complement classroom learning when used along with text books and web-based learning to provide a well-balanced education to your child. The support and encouragement of your child’s teacher are crucial for making educational game-based learning a success.

Should your Preschooler play Online Games?

Kids and games go together like cheese and crackers but most parents aren’t exactly enthusiastic about their kids’ gaming habits. Many find it worrisome that kids are picking up gaming at an increasingly younger age. And since online games tend to be blamed for everything, from identity theft to anti-social behavior, it is natural for parents to be upset when their 4 year old gets hooked to preschool games online. 

While it is easy to overlook or dismiss the educational value of games, a lot of research conclusively shows that good online games for preschool are designed to boost your child’s learning potential through effective pedagogical principles. 

Online Games and your Preschooler – The Benefits 

Here are some of the top ones:

1. Problem solving skills: Many free online preschool games impart problem solving skills to players – skills that help your child find his place in the world of digital information. While there are hundreds of explicitly educational online games for preschool, even the most primitive shooting games teach players to process huge amounts of data and think logically and clearly. This is definitely more useful than blindly memorizing facts and formula in a classroom setting or passively absorbing content from various media. 

2. Social interaction: One fact about free online preschool games, or ANY online games for that matter, is that they encourage kids to be socially active and participate in thriving online communities. The stereotype of the pallid unsociable teen playing computer games in his room is just that – a stereotype, and one that’s as hopelessly outdated as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Online games for preschool today have vibrant online and offline communities that revolve around the game. Members get a chance to interact with fellow players around something they share a mutual passion for. In a word, online kids’ games are social. 

3. Positive reinforcement: One of the most important things your child learns through online games is that it is OK to fail a few times until you get it right. Preschool games online encourage players to come up with innovative solutions and out-of-the-box thinking to notch up points and move up levels or defeat their opponents – basically, do whatever it takes to win the game. A traditional classroom setting does not offer this kind of flexibility or freedom to learners – kids are sometimes too afraid to take risks because failure often means humiliation among the peer group. 

And that’s not all. Online games for preschoolers have loads of other obvious and not-so-obvious benefits. Do you know of any that haven’t been listed above?