Kids are curious and enjoy a challenge, so why not give them one with a brain game that develops numeracy skills? These can be as simple or as complex as you like, and if your child is finding it too easy you can up the difficulty level. Check out these three fun, challenging brain games to introduce to your kid.
Road Trip Math
If you’re heading out on a long car journey, keep your keep active and engaged by playing a simple game with road signs. First of all, choose a major destination which you know will be signed regularly on the route. Ask all the passengers to guess how far the next road sign will indicate this destination to be. It may help for someone to jot down all the guesses. Then, when you actually see the sign, challenge your kid to work out how far off each person’s guess was. Then, get everyone to guess again how far the next road sign will give for the destination. This game uses subtraction and addition skills, as your kid works out whose guess was nearest, and the important skill of educated guessing.
Chess
This popular and ancient game is a great one for developing tactical planning, observation and forward thinking. If your child is quite young, there are ways to adapt the rules of chess to make it a simpler game, but many children relish the challenge of playing a difficult game against an adult.
I’m Thinking Of A Number
Think of a number and give your kid some key clues about it – for example, tell them whether it is one, two, or three-digits, tell them whether it is an odd or even numbers, or give them two numbers that it is between. For example, if your number was 48, you could say it is between 30 and 60, to help them narrow it down. They need to use these clues to work out which number is yours. As they guess, encourage them to consider the clues. Pause and demonstrate how you would guess the number. This is a fun game and you can play a few rounds in 10 minutes, so is great if you are waiting in the car or cooking dinner.