5 Days of Teaching Creatively: Wednesday-Toys, Games, and Puzzles

I remember as a young girl, my grandmother teaching me to play games. We would play lots of different types of games. Spite and Malice and Rummikub are still two of my favorites.

For a couple of years while I was growing up, I lived in what was considered to be a retirement village in Arkansas. My Grandma did not live far from me and many a night I would go to her house and play games with her and her friends.

I learned so much on those nights. My Grandma, Mildred and Lester, Kathryn and Lloyd, and Lenore taught me much. Although I learned how to play games, they taught me so much more during those evenings. They taught me about respect, about the joy of listening to stories, about table manners, about being empathetic, and about how to live a good life. They never set out to teach me all of that, but I learned spending evenings having dinner with them, playing games, sitting on porch swings, and having conversation.

Yes. I'll never forget the look on Grandma's face when I actually beat her at a game, on my own, without her giving it away (although she rarely did that). But I'll also never forget what I learned while I was playing the games.

You can find lots of information about the benefits of games: cognitive, social, emotional, and developmentally. But there are benefits of games that far out-weigh the value of the game. And you guessed it, we play a lot of games.

What have you or your kids learned playing games?

Wishing you homeschool blessings,