Use this Play Together guide to learn how you can help your child turn League of Legends play time into a positive learning and relationship-building experience. To learn more about why playing games with your children is so important, check out our Science of Play page.

Talk Before You Play

Take a minute to talk with your child about how the Planning, Flexibility, and Self-Awareness thinking skills work, and why they are important for success in school and at home.

Set Gameplay Goals

League of Legends is a multiplayer game that you can play with your children. However you will need two PC's and two (free) game accounts. Even if you don't plan on playing LofL with your kids, there are still several gameplay goals you can help your children complete, ensuring they get the most from their experience.

Gameplay Goals:

• Complete the tutorial round.
• Win one match against the game's AI.
• Reach Summoner level 3.
• Win one match against a team of real players.
• Long-term Goal: In a round, be the player with the game's best score.
• Long-term Goal: Reach Summoner levels 10, 20, and 30.

Stop and Reflect

After you've played a match or two against the game's AI, stop and ask your child how the Planning and Flexibility thinking skills helped improve his play and how those skills will be an asset as he progresses through the game.

• Discuss how planning could, or did, help your child's champion become more effective in battle. Are there any plans he has for future matches or different champion characters?

• Illustrate how Flexibility is vital in creating a strong strategy. Was there a time during the match where flexibility helped turn the tide of a battle or slow an enemy team's advance?

• Explain to your children how Self-Awareness can be translated into many situations at school. For example, knowing what their role will be in a group project and working towards fulfilling it.

• Ask your child if he can think of a situation at school or at home where the Planning and Flexibility thinking skills would be useful. For example, being able to plan all the steps involved in cooking a meal, or being able to switch between different formats (i.e. multiple choice, true/false) on a test.

For more information related to League of Legends, check out the MobaFire website. Here you'll find forums, champion build guides, and strategies to make you a more effective League of Legends player!

Our Make it Work activities are designed to transform your child’s gameplay into real-world improvements in thinking and academic skills. If you’re just getting started with LearningWorks for Kids, we suggest you try them all to determine activities are best for you and your child.

Introduce the Thinking Skills

Read over the pages for Planning, Flexibility, and Self-Awareness. Then take some time to introduce these thinking skills to your child.

Explain that:

• Planning is the thinking skill that helps develop a systematic approach for setting and achieving goals. It helps us to do things step-by-step, and to complete long-term projects on time.

• Flexibility is the thinking skill that helps us adapt to new situations, learn from mistakes, and adjust our approaches in order to deal with different challenges.

• Self-Awareness is the thinking skill that helps us to understand our actions, analyze our own thinking, and articulate our thoughts and feelings.

Planning Activity

Brainstorm. Encourage children to brainstorm and write down possible steps for planning a school project, a birthday party, or holiday shopping. Brainstorming basics include sharing ideas, accepting responses without judgment, and taking risks. Reflect upon how one person’s ideas may encourage new ideas from others, and how brainstorming can produce creative solutions. Keep a binder of successful plans for future reference.

Flexibility Activity

Learning by trial and error is a key component of video gaming and is a necessary skill for all of your child’s academic pursuits. In real-world situations, children are often more reluctant to learn the directions and expectations of a task by making mistakes and trying out something new than they would be in playing a game. Learning how to cook a favorite meal, learning a new musical instrument, or taking a new route to school are all valuable examples of ways to practice applying trial and error learning in appropriate situations. Make sure to talk about these efforts and experiences in light of the positive and negative aspects of the process.

Self-Awareness Activity

Be a reporter. Make use of occasional opportunities for you and your child to sit back and observe other children in small groups. On a bench at the playground, at the beach, or at the mall take turns reporting on social interactions you can watch live. Make guesses about what might be going on and then point out any physical actions, facial expressions, behaviors, or tones of voice that give clues to support or disprove your imagined story.