Construction game
According to the systematics of game science, construction games form their own game genre, which is characterized by the fact that elements are playfully put together to create a product. Construction games can use physical materials, but can also be done with words, sentences, numbers or in mind games.
Game systematic classification
The generic term “construction games” is derived from the basic word “construct”, which means something like “manufacture”, “erect”, “build”, “design”. It is a productive and creative activity in the field of play that creates something that does not yet exist. The game didacticians Siegbert A. Warwitz and Anita Rudolf classify it systematically as one of 14 different "meanings of the game". The construction games form, alongside others, such as role-playing games , games of chance or perception games , an isolable separate game category.
conditions
Construction games are designed to achieve a construction goal that you have set yourself or that the gaming community wants. This can be done in a single game, but also in partnerships or groups. The game forms are fascinating at different levels, from the early childhood handicraft games with building blocks, modeling clay, sand or plug-in materials to the computer games of young people to the rhymes and speech constructions in party games in adulthood.
Construction games require children to plan ahead, to recognize, arrange and design the materials according to requirements. In addition, it must have the necessary patience to play persistently until the goal of the game is within reach. This means that construction games are suitable to promote the inner prerequisites for a constructive, creative and persistent work attitude in the child. This is all the more true as the construction ideas, the ideas about their implementation and the design of the construction game come from the child himself.
The requirements for the game actions necessary to achieve the objective can vary from "low" to "high". Accordingly, a construction game can easily succeed or fail. It can succeed and it can fail - with all the psychological concomitants:
In the case of the successful execution and completion of his construction game, happiness and satisfaction accompany the child's experience that he has achieved something himself. But if it sets its goal too high and it is not up to the requirements, the experience can result in failure, dissatisfaction, annoyance, anger and depression. Then the child is confronted for the first time with the fact that it fails at its own and self-imposed standard of performance . Such experiences can be extremely painful for the child, especially if they have tried again and again without the planned construction succeeding.
Nevertheless, the experience of failure and the experience of not easily reaching a goal are developmentally valuable. The self-generated reality (failure of a construction game) demands ways and means from the child to cope with the impairing experience, that is, to develop strategies for coping with the negative consequences of failure. You can either lower your own requirements or postpone the repetition of the design experiment. In any case, the important experience remains that not everything always goes according to plan, even though it was initially hoped for.
Playing with materials
The attractiveness of different materials changes with age and the development of interests. Often there is also a shift from simple natural materials to increasingly complex, technically prepared materials and constructions. The most popular material games include: B .:
- Sand games (from the age of 1 often only filling and emptying, later baking and building),
- Water features,
- Kneading ,
- Plug-in games,
- (Tree) hut games,
- Building games like Lego etc.
First of all, the journey is the goal, but the joy of the end product is increased with a successful construction game. From around the age of three, the children often play according to a plan by first naming the product and then implementing it in play activities. As a construction game that occurs in almost all cultures, hut building is to be mentioned, which developmental psychologists attribute to the need for security, protection and opportunities to retreat.
The educational importance of games
According to Warwitz / Rudolf, construction games have a prominent position among game forms because of their creative character. Due to their high attractiveness, their requirement profile and the holistic nature of the game processes, they are particularly valuable from an educational point of view:
The holistic character results from the fact that not only the handling of the finished play equipment and the given rules determine the game, but the toys, the purpose and the design of the game must be created by the players themselves according to their own ideas and combined into a unit. The self-made toy made from a banana tree, bottle caps and strips of bark is more original than a colorful vehicle from a store . The functioning rope ladder gives the only access to the secret tree house in branches and leaf protection. The wind bird soars and flies and fights only when properly constructed. This can be followed by "feuds", "gang wars" or competitions in a complex playing field. As the children's author Michael Ende in his successful novel "Momo" represented impressively creative construction game leaves behind in the development process more sustainable tracks than the purely consumptive game with pre-industrial toys.
literature
- Hans Mogel: Psychology of children's play. From the earliest games to computer games , 2nd edition, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3662095751 .
- Lotte Schenk-Danzinger : Developmental Psychology ( From the Developmental Psychological Significance of the Game ), Vienna: Österreichischer Bundes-Verlag, 1991, ISBN 3-215-07048-0 .
- Siegbert A. Warwitz , Anita Rudolf: Playful building and design - construction games , In: Dies .: From the sense of play. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 , pp. 91-100
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Playful building and design - construction games , In: Dies .: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 91-100
- ↑ Hans Mogel: Psychology of children's games. From the earliest games to computer games, 2nd edition, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg 2013
- ↑ Lotte Schenk-Danzinger: Development, Socialization, Upbringing, Vol. 1 From birth to school readiness , Klett-Cotta, reprint of the 2nd edition, January 1990
- ↑ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Playful building and design - construction games , In: Dies .: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . 4th edition, Baltmannsweiler 2016, p. 92
- ↑ Michael Ende: Momo, - A fairy tale novel , Thienemann Verlag, Stuttgart 1973