If you don’t have a Simon game, or a pack of Old Maid cards, you can still play a memory game. This is a great old-fashioned parlor memory game that can also be used with kids in a classroom or home setting.
Number of players: 5-15
Space needed: Living room
Ages: 5+
This game is a test of visual memory. All the players sit in a circle, or around a table except one. This person prepares a plate of from 6-20 small objects, all different. These could include things like keys, thread, a pencil, crackers, a napkin ring or any random objects lying around. The more uniform in size and color the objects are, the more challenging the game gets.
The person who made the play walks around the center of the circle, or holds the tray in front of each player at the time for a uniform amount of time, giving everyone a few seconds to remember as many of the objects as they can. Each of the players then writes down as many objects as she can remember on a slip of paper. The player who wins has the greatest number of correct objects.
Comparing the answers can often be funny, and illustrates how typically unreliable our short-term memory is. If you’re playing this as a parlor game, you’ll probably get a lot of good laughs about what people thought was in the tray.
This can be easily adapted to a number of classroom or home school lessons. For instance, if you’re teaching your kids about objects found in the woods, place a few such objects on the tray, and this will help the learner place the objects in a larger mental picture, and help them to learn to categorize. You can simply place the objects in a box or a central location, and allow the learners to look into as they pass by, giving each one the same amount of time to look.