Importance of learning through Games

Nowadays children don’t even know about the joy of playing outdoor games and spend most of the time watching television, playing video games, surfing on smart phones tablets etc. Thus they develop health issues, relationship problems in life and become inactive. If you want to protect your children from disorders such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease, take heed and ensure they get adequate physical exercise.

Dr.Vipul Singh says that the lack of outdoor games and activities is a behavioral problem among children that continues till later stages of life.“Now-a-days people in their early twenties and even teenagers are facing behavior problems. This is because playing outdoors in groups helps kids learn the art of coping with winning and losing. If you do not learn this at an early age, you tend to find it difficult to deal with challenging and unfavorable conditions later in life. This leads to stress followed by behavior problems. When you play or exercise, a hormone is secreted from hypothalamus gland in brain which is a mood booster” he said.

Dr. Ashutosh Singh says that growing kids should get physical exercise for at least 45 minutes in a day. Youngsters have a lot of stamina and they need to channelize it into activities. He adds that the main culprit behind kids restricting themselves from playing outdoor is social media. It is important that parents be friendly with their kids and guide them instead of scolding and beating.

Encourage kids to play and enjoy childhood like we did. Children love to participate in various activities, so motivate and inspire them to play outdoor as well as indoor games. Instead of making children engage with TV, YouTube videos, mobile games and so on, get them a few stimulating indoor games, like card games, puzzles, hide and seek, pencil &paper games, word games etc. There are many indoor games which will keep them entertained and also develop their social and mental faculties. Do not forget to encourage children while they are playing.

As parents, you should make sure that your children are exposed to both sides of the world in order to help make them better and well rounded personalities.

Sun raha hai na tum...(Are you listening!)

There are so many things we need to check in classroom instruction. For example, listening. Every teacher expects 100% attention from every student in his/her class. All the students in the class hear to the teacher, but only few pupils listen. There is a huge difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a physical activity while listening is a skill. Someone who is physical impaired can be a great listener if he or she pays attention to the information someone conveys to them regardless of how it is conveyed to them. Likewise someone with very sharp hearing may be a poor listener.

Pupils these days are unable to focus in the class. My niece, studying in eighth standard, very smart and active in studies but zero in Mathematics. She said, "I pretend to listen to the teacher, it's really tough to focus and follow his instruction". Reason - friends disturb her, or she will be in her replay of daily soaps. Pupils of all ages are backward in listening to the teacher's instruction. Need of the hour is to help the pupils to improve their listening skills by any means.

Few activities to improve listening skills in pupils - 

• Play games like 'Simon-says'
• Play listening games to identify animal and environmental sounds
• Play news and other programmes in radio 
• Engage your child in conversation
• Narrate stories (instead of playing CD or YouTube videos). 

Happy listening!

Sources:
 http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/miscskills/a/listening_skill.htm
http://www.neverendingstories.co.za/educational-resources

Related links:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog-five-listening-strategies-rebecca-alber