Top 5 Educational Games That Make Learning Fun for Kids
TL, DR
Computer games for children are effective in making learning fun and enjoyable for children. They turn normal classes into fun activities that develop creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills. Games like Minecraft: Education Edition introduce subjects such as math, history, and programming, educating children via various tasks and focusing on cooperation and communication.
Prodigy Math Game is an application that teaches children math through an application where they have levels that they have to complete with the help of answering numerical problems.
Osmo’s Genius Starter Kit attracts the players by having them engage on the screen and use physical manipulatives to improve mathematics, spelling, and spatial geometric understanding. Kahoot turns fact-based quizzes into live, automated competition, which ensures social learning and cooperation.
To make an application more suitable for lengthy usage, ScratchJr is designed for children at earlier ages to learn programming concepts and create stories and games with logical thinking.
These games are adaptive to age and learning styles to make a course more individual and entertaining. By integrating these games into daily practices, parents and teachers can instill a passion for learning in children and improve their academic and life experiences. Educational games are an entertaining and informative way of letting children gain knowledge instead of boring learning lessons.
Top 5 Educational Games That Make Learning Fun for Kids
Children are known to learn better while having fun throughout their learning period. Complex lessons can easily be taught through games in a way that the child understands and enjoys at the same time.
These games empower children to entertain new ideas, develop problem-solving skills, and be creative in broad areas that normal education can come down.
From social ethics to concepts as tricky as coding and programming, these games cater to a vast range of lessons in a fun way. This article shares the top five educational games that are enjoyable and efficient for child education.
1. Minecraft: Education Edition
None of us would have thought of Minecraft having an educational edition. To your surprise, Minecraft Education Edition is one of the most played educational games in today’s society and the most competent one. It empowers children from 8 years upwards to freely participate in a world of endless opportunities.
The game’s average mechanics are enhanced by educational aspects that explain mathematics, history, programming, and even ecology in Minecraft. Players can cooperate to complete missions, solve some puzzles, and even build everything, starting with pyramids and ending with space cities.
This kind of Minecraft shows that it is not just a sandbox game. The Education Edition has been developed to meet educational curricula and provides many lesson plans. These lessons are designed especially for students’ creative engagement with activities such as:
- Performing chemistry experiments in virtual environments
- Constructing models of the solar system
- Exploring historical places.
Since Minecraft is an open-world game, children must cooperate to complete various missions and objectives. This ensures a children’s social and communication skills are efficiently developed.
Therefore, Minecraft’s real value is in the duality of education and creativity. For example, children can play related scenarios such as farming or city building to acquire vital skills. They can also address problems regarding coding when they play their games, emerging with a simple programming understanding.
2. Prodigy Math Game
Prodigy Math Game is recommended to make math more engaging and also to make students enjoy the game. This game is launched for children between the ages of 6-14, enabling children to revise mathematical skills as they go on a trip.
The game framework is based on the fantasy genre, so it can let the players practice their mathematic skills to vanquish the monsters and pass on to the next level. It is meant to be able to teach at the child’s pace, which is very helpful in a way that it will always challenge the child but not overly so.
Prodigy is so effective because it is full of games, and children are much more motivated by those games even if they are not given a prize. Participants accumulate points and gifts with every level they undertake, which motivates them to continue learning. Prodigy includes basic mathematics, algebra, geometry, and many more.
With every advancement in the game, the child is presented with more advanced mathematical problems, which adds to the overall understanding of mathematics.
It also helps parents and teachers monitor each child’s progress, allowing them to notice if the child is struggling in one way or another. The game also provides tests corresponding to the curriculum frames so the parents can be sure that the child practices what he studies at school.
Prodigy’s concept of ensuring students develop interest challenges students and enhance what they have learned in class.
3. Osmo – Genius Starter Kit
Osmo is a unique learning solution for children aged between 5-10 that incorporates tangible and screen-based play. The Osmo Genius Starter Kit is a set of five games to help children learn math and spelling or solve different problems while having fun.
Children employ tangible objects like alphabets, number tiles, and an interactive stand that converts an iPad or Amazon Fire tablet into a teaching and learning aid.
Osmo makes it to the list of top 5 educational games because of its extent of making children love learning. Games within Osmo, like Tangram, are good games that enhance spatial skills in children, and the Word game enhances children’s word knowledge and spelling.
The material used in the games is progressive, meaning as the child advances through them, they become more difficult. Whether the kids are decoding puzzles or sketching objects, the children want to play, learn, and get better.
Besides the educational value, with Osmo, the child also gets a chance to create and explore their talents hands-on. Children can obtain imaginative abilities independently while drawing, completing puzzles, and constructing objects.
It is smart to create a child’s interest in such games while nurturing their academics. It is most valuable in teaching early learners STEM concepts in a playful and easy-to-understand approach.
4. Kahoot!
Kahoot! is an educational game with quizzes created and taken by learners alongside educators across the globe. It enables children to quiz on numerous facets. Kids under or even up to age 7 can learn much through various topics.
What makes Kahoot unique is the ability to make, for example, a simple quiz into a competitive and entertaining challenge.
The participants can specify the areas of the game themselves, involving the ability to answer questions in real-time and receive points for speed and accuracy. The leaderboard creates a competitive mood, and children are encouraged to improve their scores.
Teachers can develop their quizzes on Kahoot, focus on certain lessons, or use one of the many available quizzes. The Kahoot application addresses multiple learning areas, such as mathematics, sciences, history, and languages.
Since the application can be a basic platform, it suits classroom, home, or group study settings. Kahoot promotes participation, which is crucial for helping the kids remember what was taught.
In addition to quizzes, Kahoot also fosters social learning. In a group, children can work together to answer questions, which enhances their teamwork and negotiation. Parents and teachers of young children can incorporate this game into their routine tasks.
It is very user-friendly and can be used by teachers and students almost effortlessly. It is entertaining and engaging and helps reinforce and review different learning materials.
5. ScratchJr
ScratchJr can be considered an initial effort in coding for kindergarten through second-grade children. It helps the kids learn basic programming concepts using simple cubes to create fun stories and games.
Every small square represents a particular action, like moving the character or spinning him in a circle. When snapped together, these blocks help children understand the order of the actions and different cause-and-effect relationships and even solve problems in their own ways.
ScratchJr was developed as a game to enhance coding and creative thinking in kids. While children build their own stories and animations, they practice the basics of coding and enhance their logical thinking and spatiotemporal skills.
Some of the concepts taught by visual programming include loops and events, and young kids can understand them even though they have never written a line of code before.
The game also tries to creatively engage children through storytelling, which means that it is ideally suited for developing their technical and creative abilities. ScratchJr is also a good start for preparing for other increasingly complex coding programs, such as Scratch and different programming languages.
Why Educational Games Matter?
Some of the best teaching approaches that appeal to students include allowing them to rehearse and build various skills within a safe context. These games increase their content knowledge and develop other practical skills for further life. Such skills include problem-solving and collaborative ones.
Educational games make learning easier and encourage children to want to learn more with healthy screen time. If incorporated from a young age, in an effective way, kids can learn much more at home than they would in school.
All the games on this list have distinctive features that should be highlighted – creativity, math skills, or coding were developed through the game.
When these educational games are included in children’s schedules, parents and teachers can assist children in creating a lasting love for learning. By incorporating play into learning, children can learn and apply what they have learned in real-life situations, even after the game is over.