I told my 10 year-old friend that I had an electric current game for him to try and he was sitting outside my house when I got home, so excited to start! “Circuit Maze” didn’t disappoint as my friend got right to work figuring out the flow of electricity to light up his beacons. His independent play was accompanied by constant verbalizing his logic, thinking and discoveries, peppered with, “This is fun!” Lots of trial and error produced correct results as he lit up the beacons to show proper alignment of the positive and negative charged ends. This game was a confidence builder as kids accomplished the challenge cards (60 from beginner to expert), “I figured it out! Yes!” At first we couldn’t get the beacons to light up so my friend checked batteries and then his + and – sides of the pieces. He realized that the current has to flow out of the Start Token (+) into the (+) side of the Beacon. He declared, “So we figured something for ourselves, instead of reading the directions!” It was such fun to hear my friend explain the working of circuits and beacons’ strengths to his 8 year-old brother who joined the play. He observed that the beacons didn’t always shine with the same intensity depending on the path. “The lights are the same strength if they split to go to the endpoint.” He loved the bridge piece where the current goes under and over the bridge. My little friend even started to do a little word play with me saying, “I’m almost positive the endpoint will be right here!” I’m not sure when I’ve heard such a constant flow of language, verbalizing logic, trial and error and problem-solving, through delightfully fun play!
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