I chose to watch a video online of a Kindergarten School located in Kenya. The School was a local Kindergarten (St. Vincents Kindergarten) located in an estate within the Nairobi area, at a place called Dagoretti Satellite. It is remote, but not too remote that it is completely hidden from Civilization. On entering the main gate, one comes face to face with the administration block. One floor up are the various classrooms with others adjacent to the main block. It is break time and the children are outside on the open space outside the administration block. There are some who are playing hopscotch using the slabs as squares, others skipping rope, some playing tag and others hide-and-seek. There are various authors who argue on the value of these games to the development of children’s personalities. It is from these games that the various personalities and characters of the child and hence, the paper below analyses the hidden purpose behind such innocent games (Beilin & Pufall, 2013) .
Hopscotch is a game played either alone or with company. It involves drawing a series of squares on the ground, termed as the court, numbering each of the squares and tossing an object onto the boxes chronologically. Once the object has landed inside the intended square, without touching the lines of the square and without bouncing, then the player hops on one leg through the course picking up the item as they pass. On the square, either foot can be used to collect the item. When a player doesn’t meet any of the requirements, then the opportunity passes on to another playmate. The game allows for the development of non-egocentric behaviour. In as much as children can access various boxes, there are others that are difficult to attain. For a child who succeeds in throwing a tag to a box considered difficult, other will start emulating his behaviour. This game also hedges against Animism in children (Brown & Desforges, 2013) . The game is constant and the variables are not changing, hence, a child cannot claim that something other than that which is evident to all was the cause of their mishaps, or inability to perform in the game (Wertsh & Tulviste, 1990) .
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Skipping rope is a game that involves three or more players. Two of the players hold the ends of a rope and swing the rope such that a person in the middle has the rope passing under their feet and over their heads. The goal is to skip over the rope each time it rotates under the person’s feet. If they fail to jump and stop the motion of the rope, then someone else has an opportunity at the same. Children utilize this game to play in multitudes where each lines up and enters as the rope rotates. They ensure to enter and exit the arena without stopping the motion of the rope. If they do, then they are to wait aside until all other members fail, or become the ones to hold onto the rope and rotate. The game aids children to practice equality. The rules are simple, you play and if you die you wait aside for others to die too. It provides a non-centric mind-set for children. They not only concentrate on themselves but also cheer on others as they play. They are genuinely happy for other children and hope that there team can win even with their absence. In contrast, a child learns to be depended upon, when they are the only surviving jump-rope in her team. Through this game, children learn the concept of irreversibility. Once they have died, the action cannot be reversed, and also aids to teach against selfishness (Beilin & Pufall, 2013) .
Tag is a game that involves more than one member of the team. It can be between two to fifty or more. However, in this scenario, there were only about ten children playing the game. It involves a person who is “It” running after others trying to catch either one of them who then becomes “it”. The game is similar to hide-and –seek however, the members do not need to hide, and they chase after each other. Psychologists argue that Tag builds the self-esteem of a child and their self-confidence. In the game, there is no person superior to the other, rather each plays a simple role, and you are either running away from or being chased after. Irrespective of your background, the game unifies the people and prevents the development of egocentric mentalities in children. Since the game also involves the development of ingenious methods to prevent the person being chased from being captured, it is also a game that aids in the development of decision making skills. They learn to be non-conservative (Wertsh & Tulviste, 1990) .
Hide-and-seek involves a member, known as the seeker, closing their eyes against, a wall, tree or other object and counting to ten, twenty or a given number. While the member is counting, other players run and hide. Once done counting, the seeker then proceeds to search for each of the other members. The difference with the common hide-and-seek played in America is that once seeker finds a member, they scream out the person’s name and each race to the position where they were counting and hits the tree or wall saying “TIPPO”. This way, the seeker is not liable to be seeking after finding other members, rather, the first person found then becomes the seeker. If the seeker however gets a person’s identity wrong, then he is bound to be a seeker again. Psychologists argue that this game is important as it affirms the values of life. A child will run and hide as they have the need to explore and discover new places. They will be happy about hiding but will however get lonely once they have hidden for too long. They will start looking for reassurance that their friends want to find them, hence, they will occasionally peek to see whether their friend is still looking for them. Hide-and-seek is a life affirming lesson for children. They learn to depend on others and find comfort in others (Petrovska, Sivevska, & Cackov, 2013) .
Through the discovery of the various values that are held within various games, children are in a position to identify what makes them happy and what does not. They develop emotions and reactions to their peers that are not based on egocentrism, centralism or any other mental conditions as described by Paiget.
References
Beilin, H., & Pufall, P. B. (2013). Piaget’s Theory: Prospects and Possibilities . Psychology Press.
Brown, G., & Desforges, C. (2013). Piaget’s Theory . New York & London: Routledge.
Petrovska, S., Sivevska, D., & Cackov, O. (2013). Role of the Game in the Development of Preschool Child. Elsevier Ltd. , 880–884. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.08.770
Wertsh, J. V., & Tulviste, P. (1990). Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context. Science , 249 (4969), 684–686.
