Boardgames have always been an important part of anyone’s childhood! And it’s amazing to see boardgames from our childhood still being used by today’s children. What makes it even better is that they are used in the field of early education, working to teach children other important skills while having fun!

1. Cognitive Functions
Depending on the chosen game, cognitive functions (memory, information retention, problem-solving, and others) are honed when playing. The mind is further developed and the memory is also equipped to retain the information. It has been scientifically studied that when engaging in boardgames, the body is enhancing the prefrontal cortex – a part of the brain which is responsible for complex functions!

2. Brain Development
It goes without saying that engaging in boardgames is a crucial role in any child’s growth & development. When playing board games, children are learning social and communication skills. Additionally, they are also learning to concentrate longer and focus over longer periods of time

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Pictured below are two children from our Preschool classroom; Miss Gina, the lead #preschool teacher, had the children engaging in #boardgames, which is a great cross-curricular activity! With such a simple game, the children are able to incorporate math (counting skills & number recognition), social skills (patience & taking turns), language, and color recognition!

Kudos to Miss Gina for brining out so many learning avenues with a simple game!

Here are some other games you can play with your child(ren) as they grow older as well:

Scrabble Junior,
Learning Avenues: literacy and language skills

Boggle Junior,
Learning Avenues: Teaches letters, words, spelling, matching skills

Monopoly Junior,
Learning Avenues:  math, color recognition, reading, reasoning, social skills

You may not think so, but block play is a beneficial and educational activity for your little one to engage in! There are many skills which are enhanced with this simple activity.

First, it helps to develop better motor skills; when children engage in building with blocks, it requires your child to place them in a position so that they don’t topple. As the child engaged in this activity more, his/her hand-eye coordination also improves.

Block play also works to increases mental stimulation; children learn to think logically when playing. After they see what they’ve built fall down a few times, they automatically learn how to arrange the blocks to prevent this from happening.

Building with blocks also enhances their math and vocabulary skills; there have been several studies done which show that the inclusion of building blocks helps develop these skills. Language skills develop because the children learn the names of the colors, shapes and sizes of building blocks. Math skills are further honed when a child learns to add up or subtract the number of building blocks required to build a structure.

In addition, such an activity also enhances their creativity; the children slowly move from merely stacking blocks to creating structures and naming their buildings!

Finally, this type of play activity also encourages positive social interaction between children. y using building blocks, children engage in sharing with one another. By encouraging them to play together they learn how to interact and cooperate!

We are very excited to share with our current parents and future parents the Ellie Academy blog! This will be a portal that will act as a home-to-school connection, projects you can do to keep the learning active in the home environment, how to beat the unhealthy eating habits (or even how to gain better eating habits), suggestions on how to deal with difficult scenarios which may come up through development, and so much more!

Contributors to the blog will not just be from our owner, but our staff as well!

Babies are such a nice way to start people. —Don Herold