It may sound obvious, but despite all the efforts to improve children's reading, math, and test-taking skills—if kids can't focus or remember instructions, they will have difficulty learning. That’s why researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education came up with Brain Games and teamed up with the nonprofit HopeLab and Daylight to develop this powerful tool to help get kids ready to learn
Currently being tested in South Carolina elementary schools, Brain Games is a box set of quick, fun, teacher-led exercises that hones kids’ focus, memory, and self-control skills, which neuroscience and Harvard research suggest are fundamental for academic success.
For an educational tool to be effective, it needs to draw from evidence-based brain science. Brain Games had already proven effective in strengthening the essential skills of focus, memory, and self-control — and we designed this version to amplify the cognitive benefits of helping kids learn how to “think about their thinking.”
For an educational tool to be impactful, it needs to work in the lives of busy teachers. Through on-the-ground research, we heard loud and clear: "We need to help our kids learn how to learn, but please don't drop another program onto our overloaded plates." By engaging with teachers in feedback cycles throughout the design process, we crafted Brain Games into small activities with the potential for maximum impact. These five-minute games can be used by teachers to ease transition times during the schoolday and don’t involve heavy curricular requirements like many big education programs.
