FAQ

Table of Contents

Play2Learn Pals

Play2Learn Pals, with its innovative and wide range of Play2Learn products, helps children to enjoy the learning process thereby bringing back the fun in learning for the children.
Play2Learn Pals produces card and board games for children in the age group of 3 to 6 years that enable them to learn while playing. To start with our focus is going to be on English and Mathematics.
Unlike other games, we intend to offer effective learning through games. Also, the games can be played in schools and homes with 2 or more participants. Our aim is to help the children learn better and make teaching easier for teachers.
Our games are playable at schools as well as in homes or at any other place like any other card or board game.

Children

When children choose to play, they are not thinking “Now I am going to learn something from this activity.” Yet their play creates powerful learning opportunities across all areas of development. The learning happens alongside almost unconsciously. Development and learning are complex and holistic, and yet skills across all developmental domains can be encouraged through play, including learning, motor, cognitive and social and emotional skills.

Our card and board games are so designed that the children learn during the process of playing. The games have an embedded learning element in it due to which as the child is engrossed in playing the game the learning happens alongside almost unconsciously. Taking an example of one of our board games, let us assume the child throws the dice and gets a ‘2’ and lands on a square with the alphabet ‘m’. The child has to now form a word starting with ‘m’ to gain points. Let us say the child forms the word ‘me’ and gains points and the game continues. In this case the child has learnt a word ‘me’. As the game progresses, the child likely tries harder to form more words. This is an example of how the learning happens while playing.
The natural instinct of children is to play games and have fun. They typically are self-motivated and completely absorbed while playing. Thus given the basic nature of the children we can expect them to be motivated to play the games. This motivation will provide the natural thrust to play the games with the learning happening alongside while playing the games.
Since the chidren are having fun while playing the games, it is likely that the games will hold the children’s interest. Moreover, the children will be playing different card and board games at different points in time thereby ensuring that their interest is retained for a long period. It is going to be the endeavour of Paly2Learn Pals to create games that will hold children’s interest by making it more interesting and challenging (making the learning still better) while ensuring that it remains fun to play for the children.
Minimum of 2 players and maximum can be decided by the players themselves. Each card and board game has its own instructions that have to be followed while playing the game. The instructions are kept simple in order to make it very easy for children to follow.

Learning

The learning will happen at the child’s own pace for e.g. one child will form a 2-letter word, another a 3-letter word or a 4-letter word. Since any game is participative and competitive by its very nature, each child will likely strive to do better constantly and the pace of learning will improve over time.
Since the children are most liklely highly motivated and engaged while playing the games, they are likely to absorb the learning better. Additionally, retention of any learning stems from repetition. Since the games can be played again and again – at schools, homes and elsewhere – it is more than likely the learning will prove to be sticky and the children will be able to retain the learning and perform better in the long run. To take the earlier example of a child forming the word ‘me’ in one game, it is likely to remember the word while playing the next game. Similarly with other words. Therefore by playing the games the children are more than likely to retain the learning.
There is an element of experiential learning in our games. Also, since games are played by 2 or more persons (and sometimes in teams), an element of dynamic learning comes into play. To take the earlier example (of a child forming the word ‘me’ with the letter ‘m’) further, if 4 children are playing the same game and the other children formed the words ‘my’, ‘mine’, ‘man’ then it would mean each child has learnt 4 words – one word formed by him and three more formed by others. This dynamic learning contributes to better learning in the long run.
While playing children are exploring, fully absorbed, engaging their imagination, taking risks, and solving problems and in the process they are learning valuable skills that support social, physical and cognitive development. Play-based learning is important to a child’s development of social and emotional skills, such as the ability to develop positive relationships with peers. As children play together, they learn to get along with one another, cooperate, communicate effectively, problem solve and resolve conflicts. They are learning to take turns, wait and share their materials. These are crucial skills for later in life!

Parents

Many people, if asked, express the belief that play is frivolous and that play opportunities take time away from ‘true learning’. These misconceptions are caused by a lack of understanding of the benefits of play in children’s education. Indeed, in playful experiences, children tap a breadth of skills at any one time. Children are ‘hands-on’ learners. They acquire knowledge through playful interaction with objects and people. By choosing to play with the things they like to do, children actually develop skills in all areas of development: intellectual, social, emotional and physical.
Since our card and board games make for an interesting and invigorating playtime for the children and can be played by parents with their children at home, the parents can spend quality time with their children and contribute to their children’s learning. By playing with their children the parents can also see how well the child is doing as they can see it first-hand during the play and also get the opportunity to help the children improve their performance by playing with them more often. In this manner home learning becomes a wonderful experience instead of a chore.
Children typically love to play and at home they would be only too happy to play with their parents. Our innovative and wide range of card and board games offers parents a great opportunity to participate actively in their children’s growth and learning. By playing with the children more often they provide more opportunities for repetitive play which in turn helps the children in terms of better retention and more learning opportunities. The parents also can have the satisfaction of making meaningful contribution to thier children’s learning and also seeing their children happy, involved and excited.
Our card and board games provide wonderful opportunities for parents to play with their children and keep them engaged, happy and learn – all at the same time. As parents spend quality time and actively play with their children they can easily see the joy and excitement in the faces of their children. The parents can also use the opportunities to teach their children the social skills that would help them manage their social interactions better.

This enjoyable learning environment at home where the parents participate actively by playing with their children provides them the strong psychological cocoon that keeps them happy and secure. This environment is likely to create a high level of security and comfort in the children’s minds which over a period of time can be expected to lead to better bonding between the parents and children. The unseen benefit of significant and important learning that happens alongside without that being the focus would be the icing on the cake of bonding between parents and children.

Teachers

First, the teachers get a bunch of motivated and engaged children who are willing and enthusiastic participants in the learning process that is likely to lead to the childing absorbing the learning better as they are fully involved. The teachers have the opportunity to engage with the children during the games making the classes participatory and therefore more lively. Such classes will likely lead to significantly better learning outcomes as the teachers can better appreciate each child’s abilities and guide them accordingly.
Typically retention of learning is ensured through repetition. Children’s natural instinct is to play and they seem to be able to play all day. By channelising this unbound energy and directing it to our wide range of card and board games that have an embedded learning element in it, the teachers can ensure that the children play the games repeatedly without getting bored. Playing repeatedly ensures that the learning is sticky and thereby retained for a long time. We call it the ‘Chicklet Learning’ – Learning that sticks!
Rote memorization and recall of information remain the norm in many settings. Children are forced to curb their natural instincts and adhere to this due to either fear of teacher or fear of not getting good marks. Fear is not a good motivator for study. On the contrary our card and board games help the teachers to create a wonderful participatory learning enviroment that builds on the children’s natural instincts of curiousity and exploration and love of playing and make them enthusiatic, excited and engaged participants in the learning process and ensure better learning.
When teachers introduce our card and board games in the classes, they are likely to have a bunch of excited and enthusiastic children. By itself the magic that unfolds as the children play our card and board games will uplift the performance of all the children as in addition to self-learning there is peer learning and group learning. In addition, while the children focus on the play, the teachers get the opportunity to focus on the learning by the children in the process of playing. The teachers will be able to see for themselves the learning outcomes of all the children in the class. This assessment can lead to pro-active measures like pairing a weaker child with a stronger child as a team, provide the weaker students more opportunities for repetitive play, ask the parents of the weaker students to play more with them at home etc. and help them improve their performance.

Schools

The present method of teaching and learning does not tap the full capabilities of the child as the child is constrained to curb its natural curiosity and exploration instincts and does not keep the child engaged and involved. Learning by playing offers significantly better learning outcomes for children than the instruction method of teaching and the rote method of learning that is currently in vogue. Such experiential learning provides the children the space to grow and helps them learn much better.
Schools could create a great learning environment for children by enabling learning by playing. This is easily achieved with our card and board games, which has a learning element embedded in it. This learning environment converts classrooms into playrooms where the classes become lively with children and teachers participating actively in the playing and the learning happening alongside, almost unconsciously. The learning is enhanced due to not only self-learning that happens while playing but also due to group learning.
With our card and board games the children are self-motivated and fully engaged in the class with the result their performance is going to be significantly better. Teachers being active participants in the learning process , would be motivated too. This combined motivation and engagement along with peer learning and group learning creates a virtuous cycle of learning, which when coupled with the opportunity to assess children and take corrective measures as necessary can lead to significantly better learning for children.
A school’s reputation is built on how its children perform. Our card and board games offer plenty of opportunities for children to enjoy the playing with the learning happening alongside, almost unconsciously. It also keeps the children motivated and engaged. The children also get opportunities to learn through repetitive play and group learning. Also, it offers teachers plenty of opportunities to participate actively in the children’s learning and improve the performance of the children performance of weaker children as required. Further, our card and board games offer parents to participate in their children’s learning. Thus the learning of the children is enhanced leading to better performance that in turn enhances the reputation of the school.