Isn’t it great when your kids teach you something? My girls taught me all about this block game they have been learning about at school, and then proceeded to beat me at it time and time again. It is called Bloxorz and you essentially have to rotate a block in such a way that it fits in this square hole. It has excellent directions (read them!) and will stretch your spatial and critical thinking skills. The game is unique, you don’t ‘die’ or start over after a certain number of failed attempts. My first grader gets to level 17 while I have been stuck on seven.
My ten year old showed me another game on the site. It is a fantastic simulation called Coffee Shop. (I wonder how she knew I’d like it!?) As the ‘owner’ of a coffee shop the players get to name the shop and buy supplies. You also get to set a price, decide on a java recipe and open your shop for business. You get to watch the day go by, and customers will buy coffee and give you feedback on taste and price. The simulation lasts 14 “days” and you can raise and lower your price depending on weather, customer feedback and how much you think the market will allow. I found myself running out of supplies the first few days, which obviously limited the amount of profit I made.
I envision this being a simulation that would put a lot of economic terms into context (supply and demand, market, consumers) for instruction.
These are two of the games, there are several others. Let me know if you look at them and find any that are exceptional. I intend to look at the Lemonade Stand here shortly.
Finally there are some holiday activities on the site as well. The Christmas word search and matching games look okay, not nearly as involved or higher level thinking as the previously mentioned activities.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Class Computer Station, Learning Games, Math
[...] The Coffee Shop is more involved and has a greater amount of variables. You will set the price, recipe and buy inventory. You can simulate 14 days of running a coffee shop in about 15-20 minutes, and learn a great deal from the experience. You can read an old post about this game here. [...]