How to teach Electronics to Kids

Are you one of the parents who want to teach electronics to your kid? And you are not sure about how to go about it?

If this is the case then you are at the right place at this moment. In this article we will see how you can get your kid interested in learning electronics.

But before we do that, let us take a moment and try to understand why some of the kids hate to learn electronics?

The simple answer is that electronics is not a subject which is easy to understand.

Is this the only reason? No.

This is only part of the reason. The real reason is we (both parents and teachers) many times fail to ignite an interest about electronics in kids when we teach them about electronics. And this is true for most of the subjects not only electronics.

Why we fail is very simple to understand if we take a step back and figure out the answer to “When kids learn the most?”

Kids learn most when they are PLAYING.

They learn the most when they interact with someone or something, when they actually see things happening.

Learning electronics is no different.

Kids will not be interested in electronics if we just draw symbols of electronic circuits and try to explain them how an electronic circuit works.

Kids will learn electronics more when they play with games which are based on electronics.

If you can get your kids a game based on electronics which can teach them atleast some basics of electronics, your kid will not only enjoy playing with it but will also get educated at the same time.

So which are these games?

There are many available in the market today but our absolute favorite is Snap Circuits series from Elenco.

There are 5 games in this series which are very useful in teaching electronics to children.

1. Snap Circuits Jr SC-100,

2. Snap Circuits SC-300,

3. Snap Circuits Pro SC-500,

4. Snap Circuits Extreme SC-750 and

5. Snap Circuits SC-750R

All of these games come with real electronic circuit components. So now there is no need for you to only draw the diagrams of the electronic components. You can show your kid how an electronic component looks like in reality.

These games also come with instructions about how to create various electronic circuits. Your kid can create anything from Flying Saucer to a Lie Detector or he can create an Adjustable Light Control or a Vibration detector etc.

Because kids can create all of these circuits with their own hands, they learn a lot about electronics than they would have reading about these circuits in a book.

Not only do they learn electronics, since these are all games which they can play, these games manage to hold a kid’s interest for more time than a book could have managed to do it.

The games mentioned above, start with less number of circuits (which can be built using the game) and then the number of circuits increase as you go to the next game in the series.

This way you can progressively teach your kids about electronics step by step instead of teaching everything at one go.

If you are worried about the safety of your kids while playing with these games, then don’t be, because the circuits built with these games run on AA batteries. So plugging the circuit in a live socket is not required.

Also all the circuits are built by snapping together the various components on a plastic grid, so there is no need for the kids to go through the dangers and hassles of soldering the components together.

Since it so extremely easy to snap all the different components together with minimal effort, kids will love to experiment by building different circuits and this will help in developing their interest in electronics.

We have done a detailed analysis of How Snap Circuits can teach Electronics to Children over at Best Educational Games for Children and reviewed all of the above games individually.

We have still not come across any other such good games which can teach electronics to children in a better way than Snap Circuits.

If you know of any other games which have helped you to teach electronics to your kids, we will love to hear about them in the Comments below.

About the Author: Abhijit Rawool is the owner of Best Educational Games for Children which helps parents to find the best educational games for their children.

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