Got Brain Games? (including some of our favorite apps!)

I love watching some of the TED talks - "Ideas worth spreading!" Today I saw one titled "Why math instruction is unnecessary." Kind of shockingly, this talk is by a math teacher who thinks that we should stop making math mandatory beyond elementary school. Instead, we should offer "brain games."

I really enjoyed the lecture and Mr Bennett made some good points. I will continue to teach my daughter math! (For one thing, she plans on being a veternarian and will need some higher math. And, for another, she plans on going to college and you'll need this for your SAT, ACT, etc!) However, I think we should add some 'brain games' - both because they are fun and because they teach such valuable skills!

Although he was talking about hands-on games, we have some favorite 'brain games' on our iPad and I thought I'd share those:

Cut the Rope by Chillingo Ltd has been our FAVORITE! In this game, you have to figure out how to feed candy to Om Nom. As you go through the various levels, new obstacles arise that you have to figure out how to work through. Even my 3-year-old nephew LOVES this game! Every time I visit him, he says "Aunt Dana, Can I play with you iPad? I want to feed Nom-Nom." Precious! And, this game is challenging. It's 99 cents, and I see that there is an online version, too!

Chicken & Egg by Donut Games is another wonderful game that even my nephew enjoys. As in Cut the Rope, the levels get progressively harder as you try to match eggs of the same color to help them hatch. You can play it online, too!

While we've had the other two for over a year, we only got Sprinkle a few weeks ago after seeing it at the Verizon store. My nephew loves pretending to be a firefighter so I think he'd love this game, too, but he wants to 'feed some candy to Num-Num!' Anyway, here's a description of this game from their site: Using a water cannon mounted on a crane, players must adjust the height and angle of the cannon to fight fires, move obstacles, spin wheels and activate traps in this challenging water-physics based puzzler! But squirt carefully as you will run out of water and the less water you use, the more drops you earn!

All of these games get more & more challenging as you go along. I love that they are hard enough to challenge older children and adults, but some levels are simple enough that even a 3-year-old can enjoy them!

So, I'm off to find some more 'brain game' apps. Do you have any you'd recommend? If so, thanks for sharing!