Teacher’s Corner: An Overview of Modern Games and How to Use Them in School

By Giles Pritchard
April 4, 2007

What are modern board games?
If you ask someone off the street to name ten board games, invariably you will hear titles like Monopoly, Jenga, The Game of Life, Risk, and so on. Many of these games were designed decades ago. Monopoly, for example, was first published by Parker Brothers in 1935 based on a game presented by Charles Darrow—and there is much evidence to support that the game existed in various forms for many years prior to Mr. Darrow bringing it to Parker Brothers.

The 1980s and 90s saw the rise of a new form of board game that is slowly becoming very popular. Many of these games originated in Germany and other European countries and have become known as German, Euro or designer games. (The term “Euro Game” is most predominant.) These games are well known for requiring thought and skill, utilising strategy and tactics, being relatively short (most play in an hour or less), and having simple rules (with most rules booklets being less than two pages).

Two of the most famous Euro games are The Settlers of Catan, a game in which players trade resources and buy new developments in order to build the most highly developed and largest settlement network, and Carcassonne, a game in which players lay down tiles—slowly building a puzzle-like map—and use playing pieces to claim map segments like cities and roads, which score points when completed.

Why use these games in schools?
Euro games are well suited to an educational setting because of the skills they require and utilise, the thought they stimulate, and of course, the time they take to play.

As many as a thousand board games are published every year around the world; many have direct or indirect benefits to pedagogical foci. In truth, a game can be found for almost every (if not every) area in any curriculum document written.

The most useful skills learned through playing games are some of the most valuable the school system can provide, namely the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills involved with respectable and meaningful person-to-person interaction. The beauty of board games is that they are played by a group of people. Whether the group is all friends, all strangers, or a mix of the two, the game is the focus of their social interaction for the playing time, and in that time individual players will sometimes benefit and sometimes disadvantage other players. All of these interactions, combined with the fact that in a game there can (usually) be only one winner, mean that players learn—or should learn—to treat each other courteously, to behave in an honourable fashion, and to be good sportspersons. (Some games are cooperative, with players competing against the game itself, and these are excellent for teaching the dynamics of teamwork).

Games can be selected to target specific pedagogical needs, to be the focus of a lesson, to reinforce that lesson, and to help a teacher assess whether a student has internalised and can apply a lesson outside the context of the lesson, an ability usually called deep learning.

Games are also fun to play, and this key aspect should never be forgotten however serious the pedagogical application. It is precisely because games are fun that students will engage in them, and it is precisely because they are fun that students will keep playing them, thereby reinforcing any pedagogical focus for which the game was used.

How can games be used in schools?
Games can be used in a variety of ways to teach, reinforce, and assess, not to mention (perhaps most importantly) to have fun. A part of being able to use games appropriately at school is picking games that will suit the intended use of the games collection.

Games can, and with familiarity will, be used in classrooms to support or extend teaching foci, but a school-based game collection can sometimes best support extra-curricula clubs and activities such as a school games club, board game nights, usable board game libraries, and the like. These provide an opportunity for students to enjoy and learn from their gaming experiences away from the focussed and often quite specific learning environment of the classroom.

Games are fun, and playing them should be an enjoyable experience, not a chore. As a by-product of playing a game, the student reinforces a particular set of skills, interacts with other people in a positive and relevant way, and is challenged to think for him- or herself.

School-based game clubs in particular are an excellent activity to provide for students. Not only do they provide an environment in which games can be played and enjoyed, they also supply a social context outside what is normal for students, which can encourage the development or refinement of important intra- and interpersonal skills.

Schools might want to use games to support and develop ESL students, to challenge and extend gifted students, to assist with special needs children, and to help promote healthy person-to-person interactions. The long and short of it is: Games can be used in many positive ways in the context of a school environment.

Which games should be used?
Not all games are right for all age ranges. The games listed below are grouped according to age and other topics; more detailed descriptions of these games are available in this downloadable document.

10 Good Games for Lower School Kids:

• Big Top
• Blink
• Chicken Cha Cha Cha
• Gulo Gulo
• Halli Galli
• Make ‘N’ Break
• My Word Junior
• Number Chase
• Piggy Back
• Spooky Stairs

10 Good Games for Middle School Kids:

• 10 Days in Africa
• Blokus
• Cartagena
• Coloretto
• Emerald
• Fish Eat Fish
• Hey! That’s my Fish!
• My Word
• Nobody but us Chickens
• Rat-A-Tat-Cat

20 Good Games for Senior School Kids:

• Alhambra
• Bang!
• Blokus
• Carcassonne
• China
• Citadels
• Dawn Under
• Fairy Tale
• Lord of the Rings
• No Thanks!
• O Zoo le Mio
• Pirate’s Cove
• RoboRally
• Samurai
• Settlers of Catan
• Shadows over Camlot
• Through the Desert
• Ticket to Ride
• Torres
• TransAmerica

Good Maths Games:

• Alhambra
• Battle Line
• Blink
• Carcassonne
• Dragon Land
• Dragon’s Gold
• Emerald
• Fairy Tale
• Fish Eat Fish
• Halli Galli
• Hey! That’s my Fish
• Lost Cities
• Maya Madness
• No Thanks!
• Number Chase
• O Zoo le Mio
• Samurai
• Sequence
• Through the Desert
• Torres

Good Literacy Games:

• Fluxx
• My Word
• My Word Junior
• Once Upon a Time
• Shadows over Camelot

Good Spatial Skills & Spatial Problem Solving Games:

• 10 Days in Africa
• Abalone
• Blink
• Blokus
• Carcassonne
• Cartagena
• Collide-O
• Fjords
• Make ‘N’ Break
• O Zoo le Mio
• Pente
• RoboRally
• The Legend of Landlock
• Through the Desert
• Torres
• TransAmerica

Good Team Work and Negotiation Games:

• Bang!
• Dragon’s Gold
• Lord of the Rings
• Once Upon a Time
• Settlers of Catan
• Shadows over Camelot

Good Memory Skill Games:

• Dawn Under
• Fish Eat Fish
• Maya Madness
• Once upon a Time
• Rat-A-Tat-Cat
• Spooky Stairs

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