Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Why Puzzle?
I’ve been puzzling recently over why schools should take time out of their very busy schedule to play puzzles. Well, in terms of its long term value I think it’s time well spent.
What is agreed amongst many educators is that young learners need the ability to understand how to evaluate unfamiliar problems and work through how to solve them. This is the skill of PROBLEM SOLVING.
Problem solving is the cornerstone of school mathematics. Without the ability to solve problems, the usefulness and power of mathematical ideas, knowledge, and skills are severely limited. Students who can efficiently and accurately multiply but who cannot identify situations that call for multiplication are not well prepared.
Students who can both develop and carry out a plan to solve a mathematical problem are exhibiting knowledge that is much deeper and more useful than simply carrying out a computation.
Mechanical puzzles represent the essence of problem solving. When approaching a new puzzle, students can immediately understand what the purpose is, but the techniques that may be required to solve it may be a complete mystery.
Because they are fun as well as challenging, puzzles can teach your children to love and appreciate the problem solving process.
Puzzling Nelson use a range of proven puzzles designed to teach problem solving strategies.
The vast majority of the puzzles are designed by the company ThinFun. It’s interesting to read their philosophy: We believe having fun is great way to learn. That belief is built into every ThinkFun game. ThinkFun games engage kids and educate kids. They challenge players and nurture the thinking skills important to growth and development. Our games aren’t designed to simply occupy a child’s time. They channel the natural joy and energy of play into a stimulating, family-focused way of building essential thinking skills. This philosophy has made ThinkFun a leading provider of children’s games. We’ve won more than 200 awards so far. And we continue to work hard to develop even more games that kids will play to have fun – and to build learning skills.
The feedback from teachers and children has been equally enthusiastic. Children love the tactile nature of the puzzles and the fact that they are levelled for their ability, while teachers see the underlying educational benefits and applications to other curriculum areas and real life problems.
In addition to playing, children are challenged to reflect on their puzzling experience, outlining the object of the game, its rules and restrictions as well as aspects of it that make it difficult. Children are asked to share what strategies they employ to help overcome the problems.
The possibility exists for children to investigate the creation of puzzles. These can be either polyform puzzles, or their own challenge from a favourite game they’ve played. In addition children may seek to apply their game in the real world using PE equipment to simulate the game board and people for the figures. The focus then becomes the language of problem solving - what communication is effective and what is not.
What is agreed amongst many educators is that young learners need the ability to understand how to evaluate unfamiliar problems and work through how to solve them. This is the skill of PROBLEM SOLVING.
Problem solving is the cornerstone of school mathematics. Without the ability to solve problems, the usefulness and power of mathematical ideas, knowledge, and skills are severely limited. Students who can efficiently and accurately multiply but who cannot identify situations that call for multiplication are not well prepared.
Students who can both develop and carry out a plan to solve a mathematical problem are exhibiting knowledge that is much deeper and more useful than simply carrying out a computation.
Mechanical puzzles represent the essence of problem solving. When approaching a new puzzle, students can immediately understand what the purpose is, but the techniques that may be required to solve it may be a complete mystery.
Because they are fun as well as challenging, puzzles can teach your children to love and appreciate the problem solving process.
Puzzling Nelson use a range of proven puzzles designed to teach problem solving strategies.
The vast majority of the puzzles are designed by the company ThinFun. It’s interesting to read their philosophy: We believe having fun is great way to learn. That belief is built into every ThinkFun game. ThinkFun games engage kids and educate kids. They challenge players and nurture the thinking skills important to growth and development. Our games aren’t designed to simply occupy a child’s time. They channel the natural joy and energy of play into a stimulating, family-focused way of building essential thinking skills. This philosophy has made ThinkFun a leading provider of children’s games. We’ve won more than 200 awards so far. And we continue to work hard to develop even more games that kids will play to have fun – and to build learning skills.
The feedback from teachers and children has been equally enthusiastic. Children love the tactile nature of the puzzles and the fact that they are levelled for their ability, while teachers see the underlying educational benefits and applications to other curriculum areas and real life problems.
In addition to playing, children are challenged to reflect on their puzzling experience, outlining the object of the game, its rules and restrictions as well as aspects of it that make it difficult. Children are asked to share what strategies they employ to help overcome the problems.
The possibility exists for children to investigate the creation of puzzles. These can be either polyform puzzles, or their own challenge from a favourite game they’ve played. In addition children may seek to apply their game in the real world using PE equipment to simulate the game board and people for the figures. The focus then becomes the language of problem solving - what communication is effective and what is not.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Your Feedback is Welcome
Puzzling Nelson has just noticed the comments on its Photopeach albums:
"Thanks for coming to Room4. We had heaps of fun and lots of the puzzles were tricky. From Rylam and Room 4 @ Richmond School.
Your Games were real cool come back soon!!!!!!!
hi i realy like rush hour come back soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
your games are so awesome please come again
Hi I really liked the games. They were fun. I would like to thank you for coming. Please come again!!!!"
I'd love to come again.
Watch this space - school competition is coming soon!
"Thanks for coming to Room4. We had heaps of fun and lots of the puzzles were tricky. From Rylam and Room 4 @ Richmond School.
Your Games were real cool come back soon!!!!!!!
hi i realy like rush hour come back soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
your games are so awesome please come again
Hi I really liked the games. They were fun. I would like to thank you for coming. Please come again!!!!"
I'd love to come again.
Watch this space - school competition is coming soon!
Nice One Nayland
Puzzling Nelson was most impressed with the puzzling children from three classes at Nayland Primary. All three classes thoroughly enjoyed their fun and stimulating lessons, while at the same time developing useful problem solving skills.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Victory Joins the Party
Victory has added its name to the list of puzzled schools. Fingers crossed Hampden St will follow. Competition details will be emailed to teachers shortly.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
WANTED. ONE MORE SCHOOL!
Puzzling Nelson believes that with one more school it can justifiable hold a Nelson schools puzzling competition. Who will it be?
Who is going to join Appleby, St Josephs, Richmond, Nayland, Clifton Terrace? Being puzzled is a truly fun and rewarding experience.
Who is going to join Appleby, St Josephs, Richmond, Nayland, Clifton Terrace? Being puzzled is a truly fun and rewarding experience.
Nayland Nails It
I've been really impressed with the strategies that Nayland Primary pupils have employed in their puzzling sessions so far. The perseverance, analysis of the problem and collaboration between pupils has been excellent. What impressed me most was an idea from a child after I was telling one class of my desire to make a life sized version of Rush Hour. Having played Pete's Pike she suggested that she get 25 hoops from the PE shed and create a game board on the playground. Brilliant. She grabbed a few friends, had a little practice then the class came out to watch. I noticed that the puzzle was solved much faster than in the classroom proving that many minds make light work.
Puzzling Nelson Couldn't Help Itself
Perched, smiling, inviting me to pick it up, sat, Hot Spot. Puzzling Nelson couldn't resist. Its collection runneth over.
Seriously though, Puzzling Nelson was really looking for a puzzle where strategies could be taken from one puzzle to another. After getting to challenge card 10 Puzzling Nelson began to realise that it was necessary to break the larger puzzle into smaller intermediate steps. We then realised that this was the same strategy used in Rush Hour and many others. We also really like the fact that all the pieces called Bots are numbered which allows for the writing of algebraic solutions. It's a very easy game to set up and the Bots like all Thinkfun games are very tactile and especially easy to move.
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