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Puzzles and board-games are great ways to educate children while they’re having fun.

With games, kids just lose themselves in having fun.

Yes, it’s educational and they’re learning stuff. Kids aren’t stupid. They’re quick to recognise the wagging moralistic finger. 

And that’s okay. Our job is just to make it entertaining as well. It’s not so hard to create games and puzzles that intrigue and challenge them. Activity games and physically challenging games also have their valuable place.

Once, some teachers taught their schoolyard games to attendees at a workshop I was part of. We were as involved as any child would be, and so sad as each one ended… Then the next one was explained and it would all begin again.

It’s fun to think of children’s eyes lighting up when they spot a challenge – just knowing or suspecting they can crack it. Then it’s such fun to take home and try it on others.

Images here were drawn for Longman Mozambique, (now Pearsons Africa) and Cambridge University Press.