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Brand-new in 2008, The Thinking Skills Day is now being offered to schools throughout the UK. It will be organised very much along the same lines as, The Maths Games & Puzzle Day but with a few slight adjustments.
The activities will again take place in the classroom, but only a maximum of three sessions will be delivered, as I would like the children to receive at least 80 minutes hands-on time. In many cases, schools decide to use just two different classes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Due to the intensity of the card games, and the focus required to play, much thought and concentration will need to be applied by the participants, thus the programme is only really suitable for Key Stage 2 children. The resources used are a superb, and carefully selected, selection of card games, some of which require mental maths plus many other skills, which are described below. As the best board game in the world, the excellent MathMagic may also be used in the sessions.
As in my other educational programmes, the children will again be arranged in groups of four or five, but will mainly be playing against each other individually rather than with a partner or in groups/teams, thus encouraging them to think and make decisions for themselves.
Many other skills, which are needed and used during The Maths Games & Puzzle Day, will again be relevant and vital if the children are to benefit from the activities. As well as the obvious communication and listening skills, the children interact with each other in decision-making and problem-solving as well as being able to win and lose games with dignity and sportsmanship!
Together with these essential skills, particular skills that the games require include:
+ strategic planning using elements of memory and maths
+ social interaction play
+ memory re-inforcement
+ visual perception
+ deduction skills
+ basic number comparisons
+ identification skills
The card games used during The Thinking Skills Day have been tried and tested in many schools and can be seen by placing the cursor on the Games & Puzzles heading at the top of this page and clicking on Card Games for Thinking Skills. The games are suitable for players from 7 years to adults, so they are fantastic for use in the family home as well as in the classroom.
If you are planning on booking The Thinking Skills Day, below are some of the points you may wish to consider:
+ there will be two or three sessions delivered during the day
+ the activities are carried out in the classroom
+ a normal-sized class of 25 to 30 children would take part in each session
+ the programme is designed for children in Years 3 to 6
+ the cost is £375 for a full day, plus a daily maximum cost of £60 for travel/accommodation
My belief, along with many teachers I speak to on my travels, is that some children do find difficulty interacting positively with their peers. Generally speaking, many of today’s generation of children also expect instant results when pressing a computer key or clicking a mouse, therefore do sometimes lack basic social skills such as listening and patience.
The Thinking Skills Day will not exactly rectify this potential problem, but hopefully go a little way to producing young adults with the appropriate skills needed. The long-term results will hopefully see the future UK economy benefiting immensely in decades to come!
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