Once a week we volunteer in a one of the high schools in the Inanda township.
That day is a serious challenge for us – each classroom has between 75-80 students and us, the thinking game team have a lot of dilemmas of what thinking game should we teach, what will intrigue the big kids. We are supposed to teach a game, explain the rules, make sure they understand them, make the game with them and have time to play. We also want them to take the game home after school to play with the family, friends and neighbors.
Initially we though to teach and play Tick-Tack-Toe but then we decided it will be too childish and not challenging enough. We decided to try it out and it worked like a charm! The students loved it and played it for a whole hour, they even taught us a new way to play – and we had a great time too! After they played in couples we had a very exciting class tournament where we split up in teams and created awesome cheers.
The week later we decided to challenge them – we taught a similar game but much more complicated. We taught them to make and play the popular South Korean game Kono, I didn’t know it before hand and together with the kids we made the board and played and had such a wonderful lesson. We couldn’t even feel the heat and the crowded room, the class celebrated the game as if it was a shiny new lego game straight from a store.
The games were made from recycled materials (card boards and bottle tops) we collected around the city – it was so beautiful to see how excited this “trash” can make a class of teenagers so happy.
