Recreational Games: A Comprehensive Classification

Cutrera Recreational Games Classification

Gymnastic Games, Aerobics, or Philological

These games involve physical actions that require a certain level of activation. They often incorporate gymnastic or athletic elements and can be demanding aerobic activities.

Intellectual or Wit Games

These activities involve two fundamental aspects: firstly, the application of intellectual knowledge (pure knowledge), and secondly, the sharpening of wit. Sometimes, this involves solving complex problems, while at other times, it may simply involve humorous definitions.

Reaction or Attention Games

These games train the psychomotor speed of response to specific stimuli or require constant attention to avoid errors. They are very practical for restoring order in children's groups, as they encourage self-challenge to achieve the correct answer and not miss out.

Games of Exercise of the Will

We are instinctively conditioned to react in certain ways to particular stimuli. These games encourage the voluntary inhibition of reactions such as laughing, talking, or saying certain words at specific times.

Games of Exercise of the Senses and Memory

The senses—taste, hearing, smell, sight, and touch—can be exercised through games and skills that also involve retentive memory (remembering things seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted).

Skill Games

These games involve the exercise of skills ranging from pre-manipulations with future applications to simple forms of sports marksmanship, construction, and even the ability to avoid mistakes.

Pretend Play or Mime

These games aim to put participants in a position to act out, through mime, actions or gestures that are unusual for them. This allows for the exercise of a valuable variant of expressive manifestations.

Games of Initiation to Expressive Aesthetics

With or without competition, these games are based on certain requirements of aesthetic expression, such as drawing, painting, singing, modeling, etc., especially in collective forms.

Humor Games

The content of these games is the apparent result of the warmth derived from the group's hilarity. Humor acquires considerable group value, originating within the group and directed towards it, without the need for external comedians.

Gambling

These are games where luck or fate determines the outcome of the activity. The teacher's system of organization and adaptation can give some forms of gambling activities positive value for group integration, the exercise of expression, or emotional development.