Why Co-operative games for Home Schooling?
Co-operative games produce less aggressive behaviors during and after play and, that as a result, they require less direct supervision by the teachers, it’s a win/win. Read more below…
Social Studies Games:
Community: A game about communal living. We try to develop a happy, complete village. There are hardships and opportunities. There are Bad Feelings to handle with Love and Forgiveness. The Meeting hall is the heart of the community.
If we succeed in building a community, we all win together. A medium-complicated game that explores both material and spiritual values.
Our Town: The urban companion of Community, with higher level strategies.
We try to develop our city’s economy and avoid going bankrupt. We decide on what works best as private enterprise and/or what works best cooperatively owned and operated. Maybe credit unions, food co-ops, people parks! The Daily News and mail bring many challenges.
Ploughshares: In 1895 in Russia, a group of Christian villagers, believing deeply in Peace and Sharing, burned the Weapons given them by the Tsar. We become those villagers, driving wagons through the countryside, visiting homes to collect Firewood and Weapons. We take these to the Village Center and make Ploughshares.
Watch for the Tsar’s patrolling soldiers who will confiscate our wagons and send us to prison. Learn love and courage so, with the guidance of our Wise Elders, we will remain determined in our Cause. We might even inspire some Soldiers to drop their weapons and join with us.
Then There Were None: A lot of creatures are disappearing because they are being over-hunted and their natural habitats destroyed. Can we do the needed research to initiate Laws and Conservation Methods to save as many endangered species as we can?
Lots of decision making for each player. The basic game plays quickly, with advanced rules for older players!
Earth Game: No, not a war game but a peace game!
Players look after Fictional Nations, managing resources and solving the emerging problems. You have to be quick thinking and compassionate to deal with rapidly changing circumstances. What to do? Try Consultation, Trade Agreements, Economic Communities, training and deploying Peace Armies to cool out conflict, Planetary Meetings…
The game is won when Spaceship Earth’s problems are solved. The game is lost if you allow a World War to break out.
New America: Given our economic and social problems, this game is prophetic. Players act as Research and Development teams trying to redesign North America’s Social-Economic System before it’s too late. The focus is on Energy and Resources, but all fields are explored. Whatever the interest, this game tries to address it.
Very suitable for thinking friends, high school and college classes. Designed to provoke discussion among mature, thinking people!
Early Childhood: Bambino Dino, Early Years, Granny’s House, Harvest Time, Sand Castles
Elementary School: Animal Trackers, Berries Bugs & Bullfrogs, Funny Face, Hugs & Tickles, Yard Sale
Geography: Let’s Go Digging, Mountaineering, Somewhere In the Rockies, Explorers, Somewhere in the Honduras, Somewhere in China
Gifted Resources: Investigators, Sky Travelers, Hotel Ritz, Space Future, Power Blackout, Mayan Calendar, Jsch
Social Studies: Community, Our Town, Ploughshares, Then There Were None, Earth Game, New America
Summer Enrichment: Walk In the Woods, Birds of Summer, Let’s Go Hiking, Farmers Market
Thinking Skills: Gridlock, Maze, Zen Blocks, Brainy Games, Blues Away, Diplomatic Mission, Warp n Woof
Why Co-operative games for Home Schooling?
Games make learning fun. But competitive games pit learners against each other, so someone always ends up feeling bad, or left out.
Play as friends, not as enemies! Our games foster the spirit of co-operation. Players help each other climb a mountain, make a community, bring in the harvest, complete a space exploration… They are never against each other.
After all, the initial impulse to play a game is social; that is, we bring out a game because we want to do something together. How ironic then that in most games, we spend all our efforts trying to bankrupt someone, destroy their armies — in other words, to get rid of one another! We soon learn how to pick on the other person’s weaknesses in order to win the game.
In sharing and working together teacher and students foster a sense of community. When there are no winners and losers, aggressive behavior decreases and less time is wasted sorting out disputes.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis actually investigated the effects of competitive and cooperative games on aggressive and cooperative behaviors of 70 children (4 to 5 years old) from four classes in three preschools using some of our games including Max®, Harvest Time®, Granny’s House®, and Sleeping Grump® and some of our Cooperative Physical Activities).
The key conclusions of the study are that co-operative games produce less aggressive behaviors during and after play and, that as a result, they require less direct supervision by the teachers, it’s a win/win. It could be argued that they would pay for themselves in saved teacher work-hours.