Allocation games ask the player to separate people or objects into different groups based on a list of conditions. Young children can play sorting games, such as putting all the circles in Box 1 and all the triangles in Box 2. Gradually increase the difficulty of the conditions. An example for older children is: Nathan, Jordan and Charlotte own a cat, an angel fish or a parrot. Based on the following information, what pet belongs to each child. Charlotte is allergic to animals with fur. Nathan’s pet does not live in a cage or use a litter box.
For analytic logic connection games, players must connect people or objects to certain conditions. Young children can be asked to give four other children a certain shape of block, but whatever they give to child #1 they must also give to child #4. For example, there are four children: Brita, Lea, Jon and Cara. They are allergic to the following furry pets: cats, dogs and rabbits consistent with the following: Each child is allergic to at least one furry pet. No child is allergic to all three pets. At least two, but not all four children are allergic to cats. If Brita is allergic to a furry pet, then Jon is also allergic to that furry pet. If a child is allergic to cats, they are also allergic to dogs. Lea is allergic to cats.
Analytic logic ordering games ask the child to place things in a sequence or in a pattern. Younger children can put objects in order of height, size, weight, age or numerical order. Increase the challenge by setting more conditions on the objects that are ordered. Older children can play more sophisticated games as in the following example. Five mushers in the Iditarod dog sled race recently crossed the finish line. Musher Harding was third, Musher Johnson was second. Based on the following information, where did the other mushers place? Callini was not last. Callini crossed the finish line after Johnson. Musher Swenson was not the first to cross the finish line.
Players search through a group to find objects meeting one or more conditions, such as toy cars of various colors from which a child must choose three. If he chooses a blue car, he cannot choose a red car. If he doesn’t choose a red car, he must choose a yellow car. An example of a More advanced selection games are similar to the following: Five players are chosen from a group of eight according to the following conditions: If #1 and #7 are picked, then #8 is also picked. If #4 is picked, neither #6 nor #7 is picked. If #5 is picked, #2 is not picked. Out of #2, #3 and #6, two individuals are picked. If #3 and #6 are picked, which of these pairs can’t be picked: (#1 and #2), (#1 and #4), (#2 and #4), (#2 and #5) or (#5 and #7)?