I have been doing a lot of thinking for the past several months about how to make learning more fun, more engaging, more organic. Part of the reason that we chose to homeschool was to be able to live on our terms. To have the freedom to live and learn in ways that work for us and that make us happy. I love laid out plans, but I also love to wake up in the morning and throw caution to the wind and go down a long rabbit trail and see where it leads us.

One thing we have done lately is add in lots and lots more games. I mean, what’s more fun: Memorizing your math facts or playing dice games? Memorizing maps or playing The Scrambled States of America game? Working on spelling lists or playing Scrabble? You get my drift. Plus, a huge added bonus is that we all get to spend fun, quality time working and playing together. We are together all day every day, but somehow, something is different when we are all playing a game together.

I thought I would put together a list, by subject, of our favorite games.

Math: 

Any game that uses dice can be used as a math game. As a matter of fact, my kids and I played Harry Potter and the Mystery at Hogwarts game yesterday and I could see how much my six-year-old was learning about basic addition facts as we played. My three-year-old was also working on counting and subitizing during every turn. We are also using a math curriculum called Right Start Math that includes loads of manipulatives and math games to teach concepts. That being said, we still like to pull out a math game once in a while…

Math Dice and Math Dice, Jr – These games are great for learning addition facts. My two older kids (6 and 8) are very competitive with this game. They learned their basic addition facts so quickly and had such a great time doing it! I pull these out whenever we need a little extra practice…

i sea 10! – My three and six-year-old LOVE this game! It is a bit like Memory in that the child turns over two discs per turn and yells “I see 10!” when the two numbers add up to ten. Then in each consecutive turn, they attempt to make sums up to ten by remembering where each number is. My littles love this! As a matter of fact, I think my three-year-old may have learned to recognize numbers by playing this game.

Math War – My daughter loves to play this game! It gets her really thinking on her feet because I am fast and she is competitive…Plus, it’s a great way to reinforce what she is learning in her regular math curriculum.

And to introduce and work on money while at the same time practicing addition and skip counting, this little game is so great. My kids beg to play it!

This game is a lot like scrabble in that you use tiles to make equation “sentences.” It includes all four of the basic operations, although we will only use addition, subtraction,
and multiplication. I purchased this one to help my daughter master her math facts.

 

 

 

 

 

We discovered this gem while on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. Apparently it was a popular pub game as well as a game frequently played by sailors and pirates on ships. When we got home to our hotel, the kids and I played this for a couple of hours. Honestly, my 6yo DS learned his math addition facts up to 12 in one evening! It is called Shut the Box and the object is to roll two dice, add them up and flip the number tile that matches your roll. You may flip one tile or two tiles that add up to your number. We created a “House Rule” that if your number had already been flipped, and all of the numbers that add up to your roll have also been flipped, you may look for two numbers that subtract to your number. The game ends when either you “shut the box” by flipping all of the numbers or you cannot flip any more. Your score is the sum of the remaining numbers. You want a low score. We have absolutely loved playing this game!

 

Language Arts: 

The absolute best thing you can do to instill a love of language in your kids is to read aloud to them. We do that every day, but in addition to our “school” work, we also like to play word and language games. Here are a few that we love.

These next several games are fantastic for developing creative, descriptive, and imaginative language. The kids use dice, cards, and story prompts to weave fantastic tales. My kids adore all of these! We even have fun sometimes by writing down the stories we come up with. These are a lot of fun to read later and look back on what we wrote together.

These games are great for working on spelling: (there are too many fun games for preschoolers to mention here, so I will stick with the slightly older set of k+)

Thinking and Strategy: 

We play these games to reinforce and improve abstract thinking skills. All of these are absolute favorites.

This is my older son’s favorite puzzle game. He and my younger son often pull it out and plat by themselves for a long time. They love trying to copy the designs and are so proud when they complete one!

 

We love playing this as a family. It is a little bit of a reach for my kids, but they really love trying to figure out the pattern. It’s wonderful for reinforcing color, pattern, and shape discrimination.

 

These puzzles keep my sons busy for an hour sometimes. They love trying to copy the images on the cards, all the while learning about spacial relationships, shapes, colors, and sorting.

Obstacles is a fantastic game for the whole family to play together. You progress through a series of cards with various obstacles depicted on them and use “tool” cards in your hand to come up with creative ways to overcome the obstacles. We have a lot of fun playing this!

 

This game involves looking at a set of cards and determining what they have in common. It is a bit like another one of our favorites.

Categories is a bit more abstract, but this gets the kids sorting, visually discriminating and categorizing too!

 

This game is as much a challenge for the grown-ups as it is for the kids and it really helps develop visual perception and build abstract thinking and classifying skills.

 

 

 

 

We got these three games for Christmas from a friend and we can’t stop playing them! All three are strategy card games and are easy to understand and great fun!

 

Geography: 

This was our first Geography game. It is accompanied by a very funny book by the same name. My 8-year-old daughter loves playing this and it is a really great way to learn U.S. geography.

 

Take Off! is a really fun game. It includes a huge laminated World map that also depicts flags of the countries of the World. Players race from destination to destination across the World from east to west.

These following games are also great for learning the locations of states and countries. Players construct 10-day trips from destination to destination using specific modes of travel. Very cool!

    

This list is by no means exhaustive, but these are our favorites. I have absolutely no problem pulling any one of these off the shelf when the kids ask for them. As a matter of fact, I also “count” these as school time because I consider playing games just as educational (if not more) as filling out a worksheet, only it is tons more fun! Who said learning and fun don’t go together?

(This post contains links to Amazon.com. Should you decide to purchase any of the games, Thankfully Home will receive a small commission. This will not cost you anything at all! It helps us buy books and resources for our family, so thank you!)