How to Play Simon Says

The game Simon Says is a great one for playing in the car on a long and boring trip, especially if you have young children. It makes for a great distraction from the boredom of the trip, and helps to instill good values, and strengthen your bonding between you and your family. It is also a great way of increasing your children's concentration on what is being said, and raising their cognitive skills.

To explain how to play Simon Says, you are in the teacher's role, and the children have to listen very carefully to what is being said. At the start of the game, you need to explain that to play Simon Says, the children have to do whatever Simon Says, every time the words Simon Says are used at the start of a command. For example, you may want to start off with... Simon Says, touch your nose. The children need to touch their noses. If you say... Simon Says, open your mouth, then the children need to open their mouths. However, if you say... Close your eyes, the children do not need to close their eyes, as the command was not preceded by Simon Says.

At the start of the game, it is probably best to give each command as a Simon Says command, then you can help the children recognize the differences between a command, and a Simon Says command. After they have realized what the difference is, you can start to throw in the extra commands, without the Simon Says preceding each command. As the game progresses, the commands can start to come faster and faster, but if anyone completes a command that is not a Simon Says, they are out for the rest of the game.

Most games of Simon Says are over within a five to ten minute time span, so the first child out does not have to wait for too long a time before the next game commences.