Board Games Inspire Service

"Play is the answer to how anything new comes about," the famous developmental psychologist Piaget said. So instead of shouting “Careful!” every time a child kicks a ball, holds a brush, or digs out bugs from the ground, let them play.

In the imaginative world of games, there’s one very special form of play: board games. When we gather around the table, roll the dice, and move pieces across a game board, we are not just passing the time; we are building relationships, bridging generational gaps, preserving memories, and improving health.

Scrabble, checkers, snakes, and ladders - whether it’s a competitive strategy game or a puzzle, board games have the unique ability to bring people together and teach life skills. No surprise board games are now a powerful tool for community outreach. We can’t hold our excitement about the fact our growing ACSers continue to play. As part of a community outreach initiative with a long history, our 8th-grade students embraced the spirit of play in a community project that blended creativity, teamwork, and the joy of learning.

This spring one more time, as part of the ESL Department, led by Roumyana Ivanova, and its annual service learning program, which has been running for over twenty years, students created their own board games to share with younger children from the 39th School in Mladost 2. The purpose of this initiative, organized each year, is to introduce ACSers to service learning and inspire them to participate in similar projects during their academic journey.

Working in partnership with students from grades 1-4, the 8th graders prepared game worksheets and designed custom board games to help their younger partners improve their English skills. The games were not just fun, they were a vehicle for teaching new vocabulary and basic sentence structures in an engaging way. Alongside the creative process, the students researched effective methods of teaching English, helping them understand the value of different learning strategies.

The 8th graders worked collaboratively on the games in our SCIFI Lab, an environment that encouraged teamwork and creativity, as they built game boards, designed pieces, and refined their projects.

The culminating activity took place on May 9 and saw the younger students visiting our campus, where they had the chance to experience the games firsthand. The games will be delivered to the classrooms at 39th School next, where they will keep being a source of joy and means of building relationships. Because little or all grown up, we all like to play and learn best in play!

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