One of education’s primary goals is to groom the next generation of little humans to succeed in the “real world.”
Yes, there are mounds of curricula they must master in a wide breadth of subjects, but education does not begin and end with a textbook or test.
Other skills must be honed, too, not the least of which is how to get along with their peers and work well with others. This is not something that can be cultivated through rote memorization or with strategically placed posters.
Students must be engaged and cooperation must be practiced, and often. The following team-building games can promote cooperation and communication, help establish a positive classroom environment and — most importantly — provide a fun, much-needed reprieve from routine.
Find below the most popular games common among students in Nigeria.
Fire on the mountain
Kids are arranged into two circles, one with one more member than the other. When a signal is given, they begin to run in opposite directions singing “fire on the mountain, run, run, run” until a whistle signalling – “fire is up!” is blown. Then each player tries to get a partner from the other circle. After the scramble, the player without a partner is penalized to do certain stunts or made to squat in the center of the circle. The removal process continues until one pair is left and the pair are crowned the winners. The name for this game varies across Nigerian cultures.
Thug of war
Although kids back then didn’t know what this one was called but it was definitely fine to play it back then. Here, there are two leaders facing each other holding tightly onto a rope with a line drawn in front of them, then their team members queue behind them. Both teams will start to pull simultaneously and the team that is able to completely pull the other team over to its side is declared the winner.
Who Is In The Garden
Here, the children make a big circle, starting with singing “form a big circle”. After that, the anchor then stays in the middle and runs in the circle singing, “ Who is in the garden a little fine boy/ girl( depending on the sex of the child) can I come and see him/ her, then everybody then responds “No” “No” “No” , then the anchor picks someone else and says “follow me”. This cycle is repeated until the last person remains, then others go in hiding while the last person goes searching for them.
Boju-Boju
This is the Nigerian version of hide and seek. Every other person goes into hiding and the person seeking will start by singing the song, ‘boju boju o…’ and after singing, he/she starts to chase everyone and anyone he/she catches, will be the next to seek. Every seeker starts his/her chase by singing the song.
Ten Ten
This game is mostly played by girls and in playing this game, girls stand facing each other and clap their hands as they move their legs to a rhythm. The goal of each girl during this game is to ensure that she does not raise the same leg directly facing the other girl – which means it is no problem for a girl to raise a left leg when the other girl raises a right leg. The moment a girl raises the wrong leg, the other girl scores a point.
Save the Egg
This activity can get messy and may be suitable for older children who can follow safety guidelines when working with raw eggs. Teams must work together to find a way to “save” the egg (Humpty Dumpty for elementary school students?) — in this case an egg dropped from a specific height. That could involve finding the perfect soft landing, or creating a device that guides the egg safely to the ground. Let their creativity work here.
So Without Further ado, we can confidently say playing games in the Classroom has a lot of benefits that helps students cope and get the best from classroom subjects and learning. Benefits like increased motivation, new sense of team collaboration, healthy competitiveness among classmates, sharp memory and decreased stress.
Find the original article published here – http://www.informationng.com/2016/03/9-childhood-games-anyone-who-grew-up-in-nigeria-can-never-forget.html
