10 fun board games you can play with your child
What you need to know:
FUN TIME. 10 time-tested family board games to keep your children entertained—and teach them a thing or two about life that Carol Nambowa found out about.
Electronic gaming is a given for today’s children, but it comes with a price: isolation. Most are played with the children’s eyes glued to a screen and no interaction with anyone else in your house. To have some family time, think old school: the board games of your youth.
The games might involve a story, word puzzle or shapes. Such get the child to concentrate, learn shapes, colours, numbers, letters, words and what different objects look like. They get the child to be creative and the best part of all is that the parent can play these games with their child.
Josephine Adong, a kindergarten teacher, at Silver Spoon Nursery and Primary School says children are ready to play these games from three years to five years of age.
Logi Shapes
Logi shapes come with pictures that have differently-coloured partitions for shapes. This game helps the child identify shapes, colours, and how to build or draw different things. “When playing this game, the parent can ask the child to look for the shape required for a given part of the picture,” shares Adong.
Jig-saw
This has a shape in a wooden board which enables the children to know the shape of fruits. The child looks for the pieces that form a fruit or number. “The jig-saw teaches a child the shapes of different things,” says Adong.
Dominos
Jane Kabege, a kindergarten teacher at Silver Spoon Nursery and Primary School, says dominos is equivalent to chess. Dominos involves the child and parent matching patterns of blocks with different numbers of dots and following them with a similar block. Dominos develops the child’s thinking capacity.
Alphabet puzzles
This involves letters, words starting with the given letter and pictures that are matched with the word and letter. An example could be letter ‘Ll’, which a kindergarten child would have to first sound before reading the word Lion derived from it then matches it with the picture of a lion.
Learning blocks
Learning blocks are small four sided blocks with letters, numbers and pictures which the child and parent use to create words or count.
Ravens Burger puzzle
This puzzle has different pictures. The child and parent work together to join pieces into a given picture. Adong says Ravensburger puzzle helps the child to be creative and identify where pieces go. They also learn how to concentrate. They can also create a story using pictures.
Number names
Here the parent guides the child in finding dots of a given number and matching it with a written number.
Lotto games
This requires the child to identify a card that matches an action in the picture in story format. It is a board with identical cards that can be placed on the picture. This allows a child to be active and teaches him or her how to express oneself.
Playful blocks
These are similar to Logi shapes except that they are made out of sponge.
Look and listen transport puzzles
This game teaches a child the different modes of transport in picture format and the importance of driving carefully.
Tips for playing
Babara Ofwono Buyondo, the principal of Victorious Education services gives advice to parents during play time
• However young the child is, do not use or make abusive words because as you play with the child, the words are being instilled in them.
• Do not remind children of bad things they did in the past because it is nagging and discourages them from playing the games.
• Set ground rules for the games you are playing so that if the child crosses a given boundary, they are reminded of the rules of the game. If there are no rules, the child is left in confusion when the parent is hard on them because of their behaviour.
• Give the children undivided attention as you play.
• Encourage the child as they play, be patient with them and cheer them on.