B a r b a r a s h e r I l L u s t r a t I o n s b y r a L p h

Games for 6- to 12-Year-Olds
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Open
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Paper and pen (optional)
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Before you leave the house to walk somewhere, especially if you are going to
walk a route you’ve taken many times and want to excite walkers’ attention,
ask children to help you guess the number of different sounds you’ll hear
along the way. Then while walking, say “I can hear a _________” and wait until
the others hear that sound too. Keep walking and let everyone have a turn
identifying sounds. Writing down each sound makes it easier to remember
how many you heard altogether. Did you guess the right number of sounds?
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Instead of “I can hear” use “I can see” and point out to each other any inter-
esting thing you spy. You could also be specific about the kinds of things
you spy. Only red things? Only things not seen before, such as a new win-
dow display, a new kind of car, or a recently bloomed flower? Again, you
can guess what number of things you’ll see beforehand.
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This type of game encourages open attention as it requires continual scan-
ning of the environment with the ears or the eyes.
Navigator
Most children love to look at maps, but can’t immediately work out all that
they represent in the real world. In this activity, giving your child the
responsibility of being a real navigator encourages him to pay attention to
what a map is showing.