Save a little sanity during the long drives and get-togethers during this festive season by firing up your children with educational and fun video games to play with.

According to Sherwin Govender, a founder of Inter Active Videos and Gaming at uMhlanga Rocks, many parents distrust video consoles and don’t want them in the house because they are afraid that they will damage their children’s performance at school.

Govender shares the best educational video games that can be enjoyed by children during this festive season.

However, Govender alludes that the benefits of video games include improved powers of concentration, creativity, memory, languages and teamwork.

“The benefits of video games have reached education with game-based learning. This teaching method uses the beneficial aspects of video games to transmit knowledge to learners. Educational video games transform learning into an enjoyable, thrilling game without boring lessons. Children assimilate and retain information almost without noticing,” he says.

Govender believes that video games can help children learn real-world problem-solving skills and how to strategise.

“Video games can encourage imaginative play and creativity. They can require real-time movement and can help develop accurate hand-eye coordination,” he adds.

Here are the educational video games for children:

• Montessori Crosswords: This is a video game that helps improve spelling skills.
• World Rescue: This video game helps five heroes solve problems like displacement, disease, deforestation, drought and pollution.
• Mind-snacks: This one quizzes a child on basic vocabulary words in multiple languages.
• Basic Math: It provides a safe opportunity for children to take academic risks, and it also improves children’s math proficiency and can intrinsically motivate them to seek knowledge and proactively solve problems.