Not long ago, my two sons – ages four and six – received the game “Scrabble Flash” from a close family friend and colleague. PJ, my six-year-old, loves the game. While playing, he is exploring words, phonetics, and spelling. He keeps challenging himself to level-up and score more points each time he plays. He is asking good questions about why some words are spelled as they are. He is actually BUILDING words with technology blocks…how cool is that!

My colleague and I could not help but think that the idea for Scrabble Flash came from “Siftables,” highlighted in this TED talk, “David Merrill demos Siftables.”

What other great learning ideas can be precipitated by play and gaming?