Games are great for learning!

They can help your child grasp and process concepts quickly and make the new connections last.

This is one of my main strategy to engage children and have fun while learning.

Having said that, lots of parents complain that they don’t always have the time to to prepare these games.

And true, it often requires some time to create some of the learning games from planning to finished output.

So, one hack that I use often when I don’t have the time needed is to ‘hijack’ some existing games and use them for my purpose.

One example is with the game ‘Cariboo’ which is a wonderful game for pre-schoolers to help them recognize the letters of the alphabet and count up to ten. I have used it with children up to 8 or 9 as a reading game and they all absolutely loved it. In fact this was probably the game that was the best hit amongst my students, they absolutely loved it.

Hijacking games is simple as you already have most of what you need at hand: the board, the pawns and any other item needed for the game. All you need then is your own flash cards or question cards that suit the purpose you want to achieve.

Here are some other examples of how you can ‘hijack’ some more board games to suit your own purpose.