Last year I bought a number of puzzle type games that foster critical thinking and problem solving skills (EYLF 4.2 – Children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating). One of these games was Camelot Jr. As we have been doing a Fairy Tale focus I thought this game would fit in well with what we were learning about.
The aim of Camelot Jr. is for the knight to save the princess and sometimes vice-a-versa. The game comes with a little booklet that has a scenario you set up. It says this game is for one player but we played with with 3-4 children at a time. One child would look at the picture in the booklet and set up the scenario for the next player.
As you can see in the picture above to set up the scene in Challenge 3 you place the princess at one end and the knight at the other. At the top of the Challenge 3 page you can see the blocks you are allowed to use to rescue the princess. We’d already solved this puzzle when I took this picture. When you turn the page you can see the solution to check if you’re right (or cheat if need be ;)). The challenges get increasingly harder.
There was a lot of collaboration (EYLF 1.4 – Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy and respect) going on and ideas being bounced back and forth. “Hey turn it around this way.” “No, I think it stands up straight”. “Try flipping it over.” I’d add additional information as necessary to help them along such as “Oh, I’m not sure that will work. The knight would break his leg if he fell down there. We need to make the steps meet the path.” In the end we managed to solve about 10 problems by working together and yes we did have a little peek when we got stuck a few times!