Seven toys and games that can help train your child for the 11 Plus exam.
Do you worry that your child is finding their eleven plus preparation a bit "dry"? Are you looking for a way to make learning more fun, or introduce some concepts of the 11 plus exam by stealth?
If so, these are the top seven toys and games as recommended by 11 Plus Prep School to help you inject some fun into your child's learning (in a way they probably won't even notice).
Dog Crimes (or Cat Crimes, if your child is more of a cat person) is a cute game that develops your child's deductive reasoning.
In Dog Crimes, there are 40 challenge cards each corresponding to a particular dog crime. One of six dogs (Ace, Daisy, Beans, Pepper, Suzette and Cider)
is guilty of each crime.
Your child will need to use the clues on each challenge card to deduce which dog committed the crime.
How can Dog Crimes/Cat Crimes help with 11 plus preparation? The deductive reasoning required to solve a crime is, in principle, exactly the same as the deductive reasoning problems presented in GL verbal reasoning examinations. Deductive reasoning problems can be wordy and time-consuming, but if your child is practised in making logical deductions they can potentially save a bit of time on deductive reasoning questions.
Tangrams is a classic Chinese game and there are many versions out there. At 11 Plus Prep School we like the version by Schmidt Spiele as the pieces are wooden and they come in a nice tin.
Tangrams is conceptually very simple: there are seven coloured shapes that can be arranged in numerous things (a cat, a boat, a rocket etc). Accompanying the game is a booklet which contains the silhouetted outlines of the things the child has to make from their seven coloured shapes.
How can Tangrams help with 11 plus preparation? Tangrams is a very good introduction to some of the concepts of non-verbal reasoning. For example, it helps the child learn about shape and rotation, both of which underpin quite a lot of non-verbal reasoning question types. Furthermore, Tangrams, like non-verbal reasoning, presents the child with problems that are completely wordless, making Tangrams a nice, gentle introduction to abstract, wordless problems.
Monopoly doesn't need much introduction - the goal of the game is to create a monopoly and bankrupt your opponent(s).
How can Monopoly help with 11 plus preparation? Monopoly can definitely help with basic arithmetic (essential for 11 plus mathematics exams), especially if you give your child the role of banker. As banker your child will get used to processing transactions of 100s and 1,000s.
Scrabble is the famous word game where players need to use their letter tiles to create words and place those words strategically on a board to maximise their points.
How can Scrabble help with 11 plus preparation? English is a massive part of the 11 plus exam and vocabulary is a massive part of English. In fact, many 11 plus experts, when asked what is the most important thing a child can have for the 11 plus answer a rich vocabulary; and while there is no substitute for reading, Scrabble is another way to consolidate the vocabulary your child already has and, with a hefty dictionary by their side, help them expand their vocabulary by finding hitherto unknown words on their tile rack.
Chocolate Fix is a puzzle in which you are given chocolate, vanilla and strawberry chocolate cakes of different shapes. Using the clues on the challenge cards, you must work out how - logically - these differently-"flavoured" and differently-shaped cakes fit into a grid.
How can Chocolate Fix help with 11 plus preparation? Logic puzzles do form part of GL verbal reasoning exams and one year there was a Sudoku puzzle in a St Olave's exam. Any practice your child can get at thinking logically will help them when confronted by logic problems in their exams.
IQ Puzzler is, like Chocolate Fix, a game where the challenge booklet presents you with a partial configuration of objects (in this case colourful, rigid strings of plastic beads) and you have to use logic to complete the configuration. The clever thing about IQ Puzzler is that it has challenges both in two dimensions and three dimensions.
How can IQ Puzzler help with 11 plus preparation? 3D and spatial reasoning is becoming an increasingly important part of non-verbal reasoning. Some 3D and spatial reasoning problems can involve giving a child a 2D image and requiring the child to mentally manipulate the image as though it were a 3D shape. In principle, this is what the 3D challenges in IQ puzzler require you to do: the challenge book gives the child a partially-complete 2D pyramid and, on the basis of this partially completed 2D pyramid, they have to use their colourful beads to assemble a 3D pyramid. In other words, as your child does the IQ Puzzler, they are translating two-dimensional information into three-dimensional information in their imagination.
Top Trumps is the classic card game in which each card has a set of numerical data about a particular person or thing. One player selects an attribute about the person/subject on their card in the hope that its value outscores the equivalent attribute on their competitors' cards. The competitor with the highest scoring attribute claims their opponents' cards.
How can Top Trumps help with 11 plus preparation? Children sitting the 11 plus exams are expected to have a broad general knowledge. While general knowledge, in and of itself, is not tested in the 11 plus exams, it certainly does help to anchor the child if they have some general knowledge about the world. This is especially true in English exams where a comprehension exercise could be about anything at all. For example, if a child were given a comprehension exercise on Greek myth, then a little familiarity with Greek myth (even if its just case of exposure to names of Greek mythological characters and their brief biographies) will give the child that little more confidence in the subject matter. When choosing which Top Trumps to buy, ask whether the deck you are buying will improve the child's general knowledge (e.g., a Top Trumps deck on geography is going to bolster a child's general knowledge more than a Top Trump deck on Frozen).
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