Help me give my students board games. Board games can help kids learn how to interact with each other and apply critical thinking, problem-solving, strategizing skills during winter indoor recesses while improving their attention.
My 5th-graders are incredible. They are eager to learn and enthusiastic about reading. They are dreamers, thinkers, questioners, and creators working in an open learning community. If you walk into our classroom, the first thing you notice that everyone is busy. On a typical day, my students gather for quick mini-lessons with me, then they are off to work on projects that relate to their world whilst using the skills they are learning. They might be reading or writing in a group, with a partner, or independently. They might be scattered around the room on the carpet, gathered around a table, or seated at their desks. There is always a quiet hum of industry.
You can see immediately that my students are on a mission to be the best readers, writers, and citizens possible.
My students are an inspiration. Even though my students face many challenges in their lives, they are achievers. Together, we are creating a comfortable, cozy atmosphere where they feel successful, and literacy is important. My students are determined to reach their full potential!
My Project
My students need board games for indoor recesses this winter! Games can teach kids so many things all while they are having fun.
Board games improve students' attention and help them learn to focus for longer periods of time, and what teacher or parent wouldn't love that?
Board games lengthen students' attention span by encouraging the completion of an exciting, enjoyable game.
Even simple games like Trouble or Uno are educational. They offer meta-messages about life: Your luck can change in an instant — for the better or for the worse— or the more important message inherent in board games —Never give up. Just when you start to feel hopeless, you might hit the jackpot, if you stay in the game for just a few more moves.
Of course, Chess promotes brain growth–specifically, dendrite growth, and it exercises both sides of the brain. It teaches planning and foresight. As students constantly visualize the board, its pieces, moves, and the opponent’s possible counter-moves, their power of concentration grows. It improves logical thinking. When playing chess, students have to keep saying to themselves: “If I do this, then my opponent is likely to do that.” That’s logical thinking in action.
Chinese Checkers, Trouble, and Sorry are opportunities to strategize and make decisions. Every time the opponent moves, a child must analyze the position of game pieces, and then try to move his accordingly.
Monopoly teaches students many more lessons than just math. For example, students can learn they should always keep a little cash on hand, be patient, focus on cash flow, that expensive is not equal to the best, and not to put all their eggs in one basket.
Students can learn so much by just playing board games at recess!
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Rahi and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
