Creative Thinking Games for Kids

Puzzle Play

• Puzzles are a creative way for kids to explore spelling and writing games. Rather than a crossword puzzle with one correct answer that fits each box, creative thinking puzzles allow for many correct solutions. Associative list games ask children to think creatively to compile a number of words from a group of letters. Children learn to improve the creative process by making a number of mistakes, according to Glencoe Publishers. Games that require the use of poetry forms also offer a way to channel creativity into standard formulations that meet syllable or line counts. Haiku, poems with three lines and 17 syllables; quatrains, with four lines; and acrostics, poems creating a word using the first letter in each line, pit kids against the formal form to create a poem matching the special requirements.

Board Challenges

• Board games with a variety of play options help teach kids creative ways of thinking. Children learn the difference between strategy and planning and sheer luck by exploring challenges that allow different results from choices made during the game. Board games also require kids to learn and follow a set of rules, and some creativity comes out of the process of following the rules and developing a creative approach to overcome other players. Scholastic warns parents to carefully select board games that match with your child's age and ability level to allow space for creative thinking. Preschool-age children might even modify the rules for a more creative approach for play.

Construction Contests

• Construction games combine fine motor skills and perspective to develop a creative strategy for play. Some games add blocks or game pieces to avoid demolishing the structure, others ask kids to create different structures using plastic bricks or wooden logs to match an image supplied with the game. Children also use creative skills to invent games using wooden logs or plastic building blocks. Impromptu games that add blocks to build tall towers or attach toy bricks together to enclose an area teach kids to play creatively by making up personal contests.

Strategy Competitions

• Robert Fisher, education professor at Brunel University in the UK, recommends childhood activities that require imagination and original thinking, and games that explore possible alternatives and solutions to expand on the child's knowledge and to develop creative thinking. Games that meet these requirements include both old-school and new-media gaming. Traditional one-on-one strategy competitions feature Go, a contest using stones to isolate an opponent's, and chess, a game requiring sophisticated planning. Games that incorporate timed decision-making help older children learn to think creatively under pressure.