OTHER TOOLS: low- and no-tech games & toys

Low- and No-Tech Games & Toys

LearningWorks for Kids concentrates on the use of digital technologies to enhance executive-functioning skills. However, children’s play and non-electronic game use provide many other opportunities for supporting practicing and developing executive functions. Puzzles, mazes, and games that have been a staple of children’s play for hundreds of years can be used as vehicles for learning executive skills. For example, the game of checkers is a wonderful opportunity to practice planning, working memory, and flexibility.  Completing mazes requires response inhibition, planning, and task initiation.  Many commonly-played board games such as Monopoly, Clue, and Scrabble require planning, sustained attention, and metacognition. 

Simple imaginative play, such as playing “house” or “school,” is also an opportunity to practice executive-functioning skills such as social thinking, planning, and task persistence. Art projects, playing and playing with blocks and Legos also afford an occasion to discuss and practice executive skills such as task initiation, goal-directed persistence, and organization. LearningWorks for Kids guides and playbooks provide strategies that assist children in identifying their use of executive skills (detect) and help parents then to get their children to think about their use of executive functions with the technologies (reflect) and in the real world (connect).

Specific technologies that are useful for supporting, practicing, and developing executive-functioning skills include:

Board games
Puzzles
Mazes
Family or social games (Charades, Simon Says)
Imaginative play
Arts and crafts
Legos, other construction toys, blocks