Bring your family closer and ease the stress in your home with this week’s brain-boosting games. After your kids learn to play each one with you, they can play on their own to keep them busy and learning while you get things done.
It’s amazing how kids learn through play and how concepts stick in their brains.
If you missed the first six games kids can play at home for fun and learning, you can find them here and here. Enjoy!
GAME #7: THE “NAMES FOR 10” GAME
The super math hack for kids is to learn all the “names for 10” by heart.
10 + 0, 9 + 1, 8 + 2, 7 + 3, 6 + 4, 5 + 5, 4 + 6, 3 + 7, 2 + 8, 1 + 9, 0 + 10
Once they know these combinations automatically, they begin to see the pattern everywhere.
“Automatically” means they can glance at any number of objects and immediately know its partner to make 10 or get to the nearest 10. For example, once they know 3 + 7 = 10, they can make the mental leap to 23 + 7 = 30 and so on.
Kids start to add and subtract in their heads. Multiplication and division come more easily. Fractions and decimals make sense beyond the problems written on a page. Finding missing numbers (algebra) becomes fun instead of confusing. Graphing gets obvious. Estimating for quick calculations is a snap.
Kids start being able to use math in their lives.
For instance, they figure out how many more of something they need to reach a goal, if they can afford to buy an item they want, how to fairly split a bag of M&Ms with friends, or how to help their parents decide on a tip to give the server at a restaurant.
This small thing—knowing the number partners that make 10—will give your child a huge leg up, quite possibly, in life.
Here’s how to play the “Names for 10” game and give your kids a leg up for life: (Note: You can watch Eli, a second-grader, demonstrate the game in the video.)
- Choose something fun to be counted—nuts, cereal, raisins, buttons, pennies, M&Ms—and have your child count out 10 items.
- Separate one item to the right of the group and count the objects in each location. Have your children say out loud: “9 + 1 = 10.”
- Continue the previous step with one more item moving to the pile on the right up to “0 + 10 = 10.”
- Now repeat the process starting with: “10 + 0 = 10,” and continue having your kids slide one object to the left this time, vocalizing the “name for 10”: 9 + 1 = 10, 8 + 2 = 10, 7 + 3 = 10 . . . 0 + 10 = 10. This will tactilely and visually illustrate the commutative property of equality (a + b = b + a).
- Then let your children practice without you and call you when they think they know all of the Names for 10 by heart, without hesitation. If you have a clear and a cloudy container for your child to practice the names for 10, these are fun tools that make the game even more fun and help cement the “partners” for making 10 in their brains. (See video at the bottom of the post. or follow the directions below.)
Note: If your children want to keep going, here are the next steps.
- Grab a clear cup or glass so your kids can see the objects inside.
- Have them repeat steps two through four, placing the cup upside down over the items moved to the other side.
- Challenge your children to say the “names for 10” aloud without looking inside the cup. (But they’re free to peek inside if they need to.) Eventually, they’ll learn them—when those neural pathways in their brains are solidly connected, and the values are firmly implanted in the hypothalamus.
- In the event of a wrong guess, they can count the objects on the table, then through the clear cup, and say the entire “name for 10”: “6 + 4 = 10.”
- For a little challenge, choose a random number of items to cover with the cup and see if they can “guess” the number of objects by counting the items outside of the cup. (Siblings can do this too, or kids can pick random groups of objects and play the game by themselves.)
The “Names for 10” game can end here and pick up on another day unless your child is on a roll and wants to keep playing. Then replace the clear cup with a translucent one, and then an opaque one. Challenge your child to tell you how many objects are hidden under the cup given the number of items in the exposed pile, and pick up the cup for him to confirm or amend his answers.
But be conscious about when your child is getting tired and stop there. You can always pick up the game and do next steps at another time. The most important thing is to have a good time!
For more information, see Brain Stages p. 95-97, 109, 111,127,and 138 – print version.
Want more? See “More Names for 10″.
GAME #8: “GUESS WHO?”
This game is similar to “20 Questions” with a few twists, and it engages the frontal and parietal lobes (thinking areas of the brain) as kids build skills of observation for science and description for language arts (Romeo et al. 2018).
Take turns offering clues about characters in books or movies, professional athletes, family members, pets, wild animals, friends, kids in the Scout troop, at dance practice, or on sports teams.
Give facts, habits, mannerisms, or aspects of appearance one at a time, until the other player(s) can guess the right person, character, or animal. This game gives children an incentive to notice physical features, personality, and movement as well as to remember things they learn.
Even better, their brains are great at applying this practiced attention to detail to performing science experiments, writing essays and short stories, and doing any number of other activities — in school, in work, in life.
In the video, 11-year-old Riley and his mom, Sarah, play a hilarious example of “Guess Who” in their family room. Then sisters Chloe and Mehgan play the game—super cute!
Although the game is shown with only two players, the more the merrier. The whole family can play.
When we can get back to hanging out with people again, after Covid-19 social distancing, you can play “Guess Who?” in teams — especially if you find yourself at a party or special event with a bunch of kids — or adults — and end up with time to kill.
Here’s all you do:
- State the category (character in book or movie, someone you know, an animal, or a celebrity).
- Give a clue and pause for the other player(s) to guess.
- If players can’t come up with the right person or animal, provide another detail.
- Continue to offer attributes of the person or animal, one at a time, until players get it right.
- You can play without keeping score, or tally the number of guesses each player or team makes before landing on the right person or animal. At the end of the game, when both players or teams have had an equal number of turns, the fewest number of guesses determines the winner.
You may be surprised how silly Guess Who? can get. And everyone needs a little laughter, especially now. Have fun!
(adapted from Brain Stages p. 291)
GAME # 9: FAMILY TIMELINE
Here’s a game that will be a fun for your kids to do this weekend, and they’ll learn a lot about their family and history in the process, not to mention they’ll be developing lots of skills in the Common Core. (adapted from Brain Stages, p. 193, print version)
Understanding number lines and directionality is a big help in learning many skills, so make it fun and personal by creating a family timeline. You won’t believe how long your kids will remember everyone’s birthday and how much they’ll learn about their extended family!
a. Have your children draw a long line of chalk on the sidewalk or in your driveway.
b. Choose one of you to measure equal distances on the timeline using a foot. Step at the beginning of the chalk line. Either you or your child can place a perpendicular mark at the heel and toe of the other person’s foot on the chalk line. Then have the foot measurer put his/her other foot in front of the first one, and draw another mark. Continue until the person steps to the end of the line of chalk.
c. Label the vertical marks, beginning the decade before the earliest birthday in the family, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
d. Ask your kids to mark the location of each family member’s birthday, draw a line from that point on the line to where they have room to write that person’s name and the full date—month, day, and year using numbers (example: Jan. 1, 2005 would be 1-1-2005). They’ll likely need help from you collect the dates for everyone’s birthdays.
e. See if your kids can come up with a symbol for each family member—a basketball for the one who lives for the game, a bicycle for the bike rider in the family, a book for the bookworm, and so on.
e. Optional: After all the mistakes have been made in chalk on the pavement, they can make a more permanent birthday timeline by taping together construction paper or using a roll of butcher paper.
Adaptations for age groups:
Kids in all stages of development, from preschool to young adult, enjoy learning about their ancestors. The younger your children, the more you will have to participate in the project.
Preschool through kindergarten: You’ll likely draw the line (maybe while guiding your child’s hand). Talk out loud while you list on a computer or write on a piece of paper a list of family members. Look up each person’s birthday and say them out loud as you connect each date with a family member. Talk your kids through marking the number line, allowing them to participate where they can, drawing the symbols, for example.
This is an amazing oral game for littles and will imprint both skills and connection with family members for years to come.
From first grade on, kids can draw the long line in chalk, though it may end up a bit wobbly.
~You can brainstorm family members and look up their birthdays together.
~If you have a child who is old enough to be “recorder” that child can write the information on a piece of paper or type it on a computer (if you have access to one).
If names and birthdays are listed on a computer, depending on your kids’ ages and abilities, you can either coach them or they can cut and paste on their own to put family members’ names and birthdays in chronological order — also a great skill to develop. Putting the dates in order will make pinpointing the location of people’s birthdays on the number line easier.
Once you have a list of family members and their birthdays, depending on your children’s stages of development, you can walk them through marking each family member’s birthday, name, and symbol that represents that person on the timeline, or start off the process with your kids and then let them finish it on their own—or modify the game however you want.
- Be sure to leave a comment, especially games that you’ve found your children have enjoyed playing at home.
- And please share this post with your friends!
Best possible wishes,
Trish Wilkinson, coauthor Brain Stages: How to Raise Smart, Confident Kids and Have Fun Doing It
Special thanks to Jana Pfliiger and her lovely children for sharing the photo of their Timeline game. You are all awesome! 
Reference: Rachel R. Romeo, Julia A. Leonard, Sydney T. Robinson, et al., “Beyond the 30-Million-Word Gap: Children’s Conversational Exposure Is Associated With Language-Related Brain Function,” Psychological Science, first published February 14, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617742725.
