Teacher's tips

Level of Education: Elementary School - Preschool

Age: 4 to 8 years old

Subjects: Mathematics

Using a game to help children build knowledge is a great way to use it as a tool in the teaching-learning process. This game stimulates logical thinking and strategy building, besides spacial vision and motor coordination. It has three different levels that count the time to get out of the maze, which helps to develop thinking ability. [FIM-DICA]

Learner outcomes

To develop attention and focus;

To acquire notions of handedness, location, direction, and senses;

To identify changes in the direction;

To use the handedness notion in problem-solving;

To help the improvement of memory;

To develop different thinking skills, such as observing, analyzing, and comparing.

Teachers' goals

To enable logical thinking development;

To encourage kids to stay focused;

To propose playful moments so that students develop handedness and motor coordination abilities;

To work with students' focus and logical thinking;

To develop different thinking skills, such as observation, analysis and evaluation, and problem-solving;

Suggestions of approaches for the teacher

(Approach 1) Make a tape maze on the floor so kids can play on it.

(Approach 2) Organize a tournament with different stations with different activities, such as race, tag, capture the flags, and so on.

(Approach 3) Promote different activities involving concentration and motor coordination, such as

Pick-up sticks

Dominos

Puzzles

Jenga

Board games

LEGO

(Approach 4) Work with numerical sequences.

(Approach 5) Work with comparing shapes and sequencing colors.

(Approach 6) Word-number search: Print a sheet of paper with a table with many numbers on it. They will be the results of the maths operations that the teacher will write on the board.

The table must be the same. Write on the board the operations, and students must color the correct result. It is similar to bingo. É uma atividade semelhante a um Bingo.

(Approach 7) Play tic-tac-toe, stop, and hangman.

More about the content

According to studies [Brown 2005], the labyrinths challenges help students with focus, and the psychology area develops studies of human behavior using them. These challenges stimulate players' creativity and help them develop thinking strategies since they have to memorize the paths they have already tried and perceive the location. It also permits players to find out as soon as possible, which supports the development of spatial vision. [Silva 2010]

Students can play the games in groups or pairs. They must take turns to take the beat to the iglu. When solving labyrinths, players must plan to anticipate the dead ends and avoid them. To do that, players need to follow three basic steps: 1) analyze the bifurcations of the path with the eyes or fingers, 2) start looking at it from the end to think about which path to choose, and 3) use their prior experiences to get better every time. Kids will only develop these concepts by playing with the polar maze bear.

During the plays, the teacher can stimulate students to think and analyze the situations so that they can evolve.

It is good that students learn to get resources to think using planning aspects as a tool for problem-solving because it is valuable they learn how to prepare.