August is a big month for planning and curriculum shopping and schoolroom organizing for many homeschoolers.
As you are planning for the coming year, are you including board games and card games in your plans?
I love to play games with the kids, and I know that we all learn so much from playing them. But how do we plan to play games? Tell me: do you…
- have a daily routine or schedule and include a time of day set aside for playing games that the kids choose, like Chutes and Ladders or Hungry, Hungry Hippos which are great for encouraging turn-taking and social skills?
- make daily checklists and jot down which games you want to play on which day, playing Guess Who? on Monday to work on verbalization and clue-giving, and a Professor Noggin game on Thursday to brush up on facts about mammals?
- choose weekly goals and highlight games that help your kids reach those goals, deciding to play S’math three times to work on math facts practice and Boggle Jr. twice to improve spelling?
- include the instructions or a recognizable game piece in a workbox, tucking in one of the mice from Mousetrap in box 5 and the mat for Twister in box 9, giving your kids a chance to play games that involve motor skills and get them up out of their seats?
- strew interesting materials as you find them, including leaving new-to-you board games set out invitingly on the coffee table, games you would enjoy just as much as the kids do, whether Settlers of Catan or Diplomacy?
There are as many ways to include games in your homeschooling lifestyle as there are homeschooling lifestyles to explore! Leave us a comment, and share what works for your family!
—
In between board games, PisecoMom homeschools her two beautiful children at Mind Games.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for these great ideas. While we have shelves full of games, we rarely play them! But with your tips for scheduling game playing into our day, I think this may work for us. I know that if I don't plan to do something specifically, it never happens. If I put "game playing" on our daily schedule, and then assign a rotation of all of those games, we will actually play the games!
Thanks so much! I plan to begin this week!
What an awesome post! These ideas are fantastic! I am going to post a link to your post on one of my yahoo groups games4learning.
Another game that is great that my son loves and I love as well is Carcassone, a tile-laying game, along the same lines as Settlers of Catan but can be played 2 players and has many expansions.
I just got more games today at the rummage sales. I really need to put them in the schedule! Thanks again!!!
Thanks for the reminders…I always want to play games with the kids more-but how much would they love to see that on our schedule? Good fun!
Great ideas. When my daughter was younger games were her motivation to finish studies she wasn't to thrilled about. We are tackling writing this year. Megan is starting her 4th grade year. Does anyone have any great games that I could use in our home school that would make her more comfortable with writing? Also if anyone has any suggestions for my younger child age 6 who has a big I must win at all cost issue. All suggestions would be helpful. Thank you, Melissa Y.