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Part 25 of 33

Fun & Think

Twenty-four short things to play, and almost none of them need reading. A child who cannot read a word yet can open Fun & Think, pick something from the pictures and start — which is the whole design rule the section was built to.

Every game is a poster with a picture of the game itself, in seven groups.
Every game is a poster with a picture of the game itself, in seven groups.

Finding your way around

  1. Open Fun & Think in the menu on the left.
  2. The games are posters, in seven groups. Tap a group button at the top to show only that group, or type in the search box.
  3. Tap a poster to play. The game opens on its own; All games goes back, and four more from the same group sit underneath.

What is in each group

  1. Focus and attention — hunting for every match, tapping on one color but not the other, spotting the one square that changed, keeping your eye on a cup as they shuffle, and finding the one picture that is not like the other three.
  2. Memory — copying a sequence of lights, then doing it backwards; noticing what vanished; remembering where things sat; pairs; and following spoken instructions.
  3. Flexible thinking — sorting under a rule that changes halfway through (by color, then shape, then size in the longer one), and an arrow that says whether to tap the bigger or the smaller, then flips without warning. Harder and more useful than it sounds.
  4. Patterns and logic — working out what comes next, or what is missing from the middle.
  5. Plan ahead — reaching the star in exactly the moves you are given, and moving a tower without ever putting a big disc on a small one.
  6. Shapes and space — matching a shape that has been turned, and completing the other half of a picture.
  7. Words and riddles — riddles, rhymes, opposites and odd-one-out. These are the only ones made of language, and they read themselves aloud.
The word games speak, so a child who cannot read yet can still play.
The word games speak, so a child who cannot read yet can still play.

Nothing is scored

There are no points, no levels to lose and no streak to protect. A wrong answer never ends anything — the lights simply play again, a wrong tap costs a shake, and a riddle stays open until it clicks.

Lessons first, if you want

Fun & Think is open to everyone, signed in or not, and it stays open unless you choose otherwise. If your house rule is lessons before play, set a grown-ups’ code on your account page and tick Fun & Think under Also ask for the code before. The games then ask for the code on that device. More than one child explains the code.

How long

Five or ten minutes is plenty, and most of them are done in two. They are a good landing place after a lesson, or for the ten minutes before dinner when nobody has the patience to start a chapter.