Did you know that you can play board games with children from as young as two years old? Board games are a great way to have fun as a family and to help children learn. There are a number of additional benefits that come from playing games; they enhance a child’s natural curiosity and are a great opportunity to encourage subliminal learning. Here’s just a few skills that will benefit pre-schoolers!
- Social skills
- Concentration
- Language development
- Numeracy and Literacy Skills
- Problem-solving
Social Skills
As they play, children will learn about sharing, turn-taking, following rules and even working as a team, amongst many other social skills. This is great preparation for nursery and school when they begin to interact with more children.
Concentration
Playing board games can encourage a child’s ability to focus and lengthen their attention span. The feeling of satisfaction felt when finishing, or even winning, a game will encourage children to see more things through to completion. This ability to focus will be particularly helpful once they start learning other skills including spelling and counting.
Game - Farmyard Heads and Tails
Language Development
Children will pick up lots of new words and phrases when they are playing with an educational game, whether its subliminal or through game-based discussion. Adults could ask questions as the game is being played, encouraging children to point to and say out loud different features of the game.
Numeracy and Literacy Skills
Most educational games will be underpinned by learning skills – this might include matching and memory, language and literacy or number and counting skills. If children associate learning with fun from a young age, they will come to love learning, something that will benefit them throughout their lives!
Problem Solving
Board games are a great way to encourage problem-solving skills using real-life scenarios and activities - young children might not be thinking tactically, but they will subconsciously be developing problem-solving skills as they try to work out what to do to win the game.
Game - Red Dog, Blue Dog
Orchard Toys collection of First Games offer a range of different gameplay, themes and learning outcomes that will capture the attention of young children, click here to view the range.
