101 Life Skills Games for Children: Fun and Learning with Words, Stories and Poems

How do you teach tolerance, self-awareness, and responsibility? How can you help children deal with fear, mistrust, or aggression? Play a game with them! Games are an ideal way to help children develop social and emotional skills. They can be both exciting and relaxing and are a source of fun.

101 Life Skills Games for Children is a collection of activities that help children ages 6 to 12 deal with problems and needs that arise in daily interactions with other children. Examples from the book include how to integrate the new girl into the group, safe ways of letting off steam, and how to deal with a false accusation.

Covering a wide range of play methods, the games feature improvisation, pantomime, role play, relaxation, competition and cooperation. There are also movement, language and guessing games, circle games and warm-ups. Each game has clearly specified objectives, suggestions for variations, and a set of questions that help the group reflect on the issues addressed in the game.

This book is a great resource for everyone who deals with children’s groups, whether at school, in daycare, in therapy, or simply when organizing an informal play date. It is the eleventh in the successful SmartFun activity book series and comes with a companion volume, 101 More Life Skills Games for Children, for children aged 9 to 15.

About The Author:
Bernie Badegruber is a sociologist, special educator, and elementary school principal. He trains teachers at the Pedagogical Institute in Linz, Austria, as well as at the Free University of Bolzano, Italy. The author has developed and tested these games in his daily work with children over almost 30 years. He has written 15 books on social learning and game pedagogy.