Fun 4 The Brain is a great website offering math, science, and English games. I played one of the math games and one of the English games this morning. The design of the games makes it easy to understand how to play without having to read a lot of instructions. This design makes it easy for a teacher to have a classroom of students playing different games without having to spend a lot of time giving different sets of directions to different groups of students. The games that I played this morning all had an audio element to them, had clear graphics, and provided instant feedback for each question or problem.
The English game I tried, Base Word Baseball, is designed to help students learn suffixes. The way the game works is a word is read and a “pitcher” throws three balls labeled with suffixes. The student then has to “swing” at the correct suffix.
The mathematics game that I tried, Pizza Pizzazz, is designed to help students practice basic addition skills. The student acts a “server” in a pizza restaurant and has to “deliver” pizzas to the correct table based on their solution to an addition problem. For example, if a the problem is “2+6” the student has to deliver the pizza to the table that has an “8” on it.
Applications for Education
Overall, the Fun 4 The Brain games are great games for elementary school and middle school students. I’m a big fan of review games like those found on Fun 4 The Brain because the games can keep students engaged in learning. For me, it is a fun teaching experience to have a group of students that are excited to play an educational game.
Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
Games for the Brain
Brain Training Games from Mind 360
Physics Games for Your Blog or Website
