Education for Kids and Students

Culica^® is a game that's all about fun. It's for people of all ages, young or old. Culica is also brilliant for kid's education and acquiring skills.

See also

1. Intro - What is Culica?
2. Intro to Culica leaflet here (PDF).
3. Culica - how to play and games rules - Culica games rules (PDF: 2MB download).
4. See Culica in action on the YouTube Culica Channel.

Culica

Culica can teach more skills than any other game I know of. - James Eadon, inventor of Culica

Multi-player Culica games can be played with friends

We reckon playing Culica makes you smarter. Culica is well suited to improving kid's minds because: Culica games and puzzles are very easy to learn, much more so than great classical games like chess, go or backgammon. Culica games vary in difficulty. Culica doesn't need batteries and contains no moving parts or delicate parts. Culica is portable and is played in the hands. Culica games are both single player - and multi-player games (1 to 12 players). Culica games can be studied alone, or cooperatively in groups.

What skills will kids get from Culica?

1. Cooperation and Competiton - some Culica multi-player games require mixtures of both
2. Culica has 3D geometry, so enhances 3D spatial learning
3. Culica teaches strategy and tactics
4. One fun Culica game, "CuMolecula", even teaches the basic concepts of atoms and chemistry.
5. Culica is colourful! Four colours are more appealing than traditional black-and-white piece games.
6. Culica is fun to create patterns on, it's great for learning aspects of art.
7. Creativity will be enhanced.
8. Cognitive development benefits.

CuMolecula game played on the Culica

The photo above shows a game that can be played on the Culica called CuMolecula. This is a game that teaches some fundamental principles of chemistry. Yellow pegs are hydrogen, red pegs are oxygen, green pegs are nitrogen and blue pegs are carbon.

Because Culica games are both single player - and multi-player (1 to 12 players) Culica games can be studied when alone, or cooperatively in groups, which suits both introverts and extroverts alike.

Some culica games are based on only logic and skill. (In a similar way to chess, go, tic-tac-toe, and draughts/checkers). Other Culica games have a chance element (in a similar way to Scrabble, Backgammon and most playing cards games).

Culicas can even be joined and combined to create sculptures.

Two Culicas can be joined to create a rectangle

Eight Culicas may be joined together to make a larger cube

In the above picture a large cube is made from a smaller cube (a 2x2x2 arrangement). This can be used to demonstrate geometry-related mathematics, What is the mathematical formula for the number of pegs on the surface? How fast does the surface area of a cube grow compared to its volume? See Cubic Culicas.

Younger children (around six) can make patterns or play simple games like tic-tac-toe on the Culica Older children can play more sophisticated (and original) games.

As a side-note, kids or adults with certain cognitive disorders may benefit from playing, and enjoy, the Culica. We met a great woman recently, she was asking out of curiosity about the Culica we had on the table. After a few games, she was really enthusiastic. She said she has dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia, and this was no hindrance to her really liking the Culica, which is a 3D game. She told us it was much easier to learn concepts with the Culica (such as relations between patterns), than if the concepts were illustrated on a flat page. She works with autistic children: she expressed her opinion that autistic children would enjoy playing Culica and benefit from it.

Older/more advanced kids and adults will learn additional skills to the above, including

1. Advanced strategy and tactics - patterns, planning and thinking ahead.
2. The trade-offs and dilemmas between competition and cooperation
3. Mathematical principles (without numbers) e.g. symmetry and geometry.
4. Ideas of chemistry - including covalent molecular bonds, mirror molecules and chirality
5. The Four Colour theorem of map colouring
6. Magic squares (with colours)
7. Inventing new games rules or tweaking existing games rules to make new games
8. Art and design ideas: visual art, interactive art, conceptual art and sculpture. See examples
9. Advanced problem solving

College/University level students will learn additional skills to the above, including

1. Logic and optimisation strategies
2. Combinatorics - how patterns can be combined and varied
3. Abstract thinking
4. Mathematical concepts from Group Theory and Game Theory, etc.

CuLogic Truth Table

Culica can teach new skills to kids of all ages and also teach adults new skills too. This is all with a simple plastic hand-held game and really simple rules. No computers, electronics, batteries. Get your kids away from the computer screen and away from the TV.

Most of all, Culica makes learning deep principles really fun - so much fun that students will not notice they are learning!

See also...

Culica makes you Creative!

Culica Mathematics Gems

For more on Culica and education see

• Culica Cognitive Development 
• Dr Emma Winter on Culica Development Psychology

For more information, whether you are a parent, a classroom teacher, a lecturer, professor or are simply curious to know more, please contact us at Culica. We would be delighted to answer any questions you may have. We also cater for corporate training and learning.

We never stop learning!

The Culica Team

Culica ® is a registered trade mark of Culica Limited and is covered by worldwide patents pending. © 2010 Culica Limited