Games for Thinking and Learning: Acuity and Clever Castle

Wednesday’s Games:

Last year I wrote a post about how we added in some critical thinking activities into our homeschool. This year I’ve made a special point to add in some logic and thinking games into our week as well.  This is a series about some of games we include in our homeschool. We have a table that serves as our games table (the table with the red and white table cloth below). I rotate in new game about every three days or so (usually Sunday and Wednesday evenings). These are never mandatory, I simply set them out and wait for the kids to ask to play. The kids often start playing with each other.

A lot of the games we play are logic/critical thinking games, but we also bring in basic board games and card games too since taking turns and being a good sport are as good lessons to learn as any. Some of them (like Clever Castle) are single-player games, others you need at least two players.

P1210525HS-room

Why games?

  • They’re fun.
  • They can be challenging and helps kids (and adults!) apply creative strategies to problem solve.
  • They can sharpen the ability to focus and can help increase attention span.
  • They can help with visual perception.
  • Games can sharpen logic and critical thinking skills.
  • For the younger kids games can help with number, letter, and shape recognition; grouping; and counting.
  • Some of the games promote problem-solving.
  • Games can trigger creativity and innovation.
  • They can promote social skills such as taking turns and being a good sport.
  • Games can help children to lose graciously.
  • They can teach perseverance and not to give up. You might be losing, but with a twist of fate you can suddenly come out on top!

Today I’m going to highlight a game called Acuity.  After setting out the tiles (as you see below), one tile is turned face up.  The players have to search for matches. You can find a simple corner match (like in the photo below).

P1210478acuity

You can also rotate tiles to make a match:

P1210481acuity

Below I included a short you-tube video that also describes Acuity. This is a game that’s good for ages 5 or 6 and up.

Meanwhile in case you missed it, a couple of weeks ago I mentioned another logic game called Clever Castle. Clever Castle is great for thinking logically and sequentially. It’s perfect for 4-year olds and up (it was a bit hard for her last year, but now she’s able to do the puzzles independently.) They progress in difficulty. ED is working on the easy level. The photo on the right is “super hard” level.  ED had to figure out where each piece went, using the clues provided.

Clever Castle

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Think Challenges:

You might also enjoy reading about the Think Challenges that we did last year. These were activities that required the kids to think outside the box.  We did activities such as building a parachute that would safely protect a raw egg dropped from a distance or building a tall tower out of plastic forks!

1 Response

  1. September 5, 2012

    […] Games for thinking and learning. (Parents.com) […]

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