50 Quick-Play Reasoning and Problem-Solving Games Book

50 Quick-Play Reasoning and Problem-Solving Games Book

Ages: 6-12

Grades: 1-7

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This book of 50 games gives you many teaching options: 

• reinforce a variety of skills
• games at two difficulty levels for most skills
• use the games for therapy, learning centers, and take-home activities
• meaningful, goal-driven stimuli for two to three players
• many of the game boards can be customized with your own stimulus items

Teach 24 problem-solving skills: 

Distribute the games as printed, or colour and laminate them for future use.  You will need different coloured game tokens; dice; coins; crayons, markers, or coloured pencils; paper; scissors; glue sticks; game chips; and a timer to play some of the games.

Basic language and reasoning skills are essential elements in dealing with daily life.  Without the ability to reason and solve problems, students may fail to grasp the richness of life's experiences.  For some students, reasoning and problem-solving skills evolve as naturally as language and basic cognition.  For others, explicit instruction and practice are necessary to put higher-level language and thinking skills in their grasp.  50 Quick-Play Reasoning & Problem-Solving Games provides a variety of ways to practice these skills in interactive, fun formats.

Reasoning and problem solving do not exist in a vacuum—understanding, practicing, and applying the skills that build those assets rely on interaction both with others and with aspects of everyday environments.  For those reasons, we feel games are a natural way to approach skill building; however, educational and instructional games often move too far from the skills being addressed and complicate practice and acquisition with complicated rules and mechanics.  The games in this book:

• are easy to set up and play
• have easy-to-understand directions
• capture your students' attention with fun and compelling game play
• present content that allows students to interact with one another
• address individual skills that build upon one another over the course of the book
• allow students at higher levels to integrate previously-practiced skills

 Most of the games are presented in two levels for individual skills.  Level 1 usually focuses on basic skill acquisition and understanding while Level 2 focuses on synthesis of skills or on a greater level of complexity.

Important facets of building reasoning and problem-solving skills are reflection, analysis, and evaluation.  Those steps may seem to be at odds with game formats where players' actions in the game are based on simple right or wrong responses to game items.  As you lead your students through these games (especially the Level 2 games), we encourage you to act as not only judge for the correctness of responses, but also as a moderator and an encourager.  Probe your students for greater depth in their responses or to check understanding and application at a deeper level.  Many of the games are designed to encourage discussion and debate, and we hope you'll encourage your students to extend the content to reflect their own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions.

We hope you enjoy playing these games with your students and watching their reasoning and problem-solving skills grow a little more every day!

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