In my ten years of experience educating my children (and in nearly all the reading I have done about learning), one thing stands out:
Children learn best when they are having fun.
In fact, that isn’t only true of children. That’s true of everyone! We all learn best and retain the most when we’re actively engaged in learning in a way that we find to be enjoyable!
That’s why our family includes games as a part of our learning experience! If you’ve never though about games being educational, consider the following learned skills that are learned while playing games:
– letter recognition and reading
– basic math skills
– money skills
– strategy
– logic
– geography
– science
– spatial awareness
– planning ahead
– patience
– healthy competitiveness
– appropriate attitudes for winning AND losing
If you’re homeschooling this year – whether it’s your first year or your 20th year, I encourage you to consider incorporating games into your routine! And just to be clear, that does NOT mean pull out one specific game and say, “Now it’s time to play this game for school!”
I mean, if that works for your kids, that’s cool. But for us, that mostly just means that it’s okay to set aside the history lesson for a bit and say yes to playing cards first!
A few of our family’s favorite games* are:
Dutch Blitz (forward and backward counting, patterns, colors)
Logic Links (logic)
Brain Quest Game (variety of subjects)
Bananagrams (phonics, building words)
Scrabble (phonics, building words, learning new vocabulary)
Classic Monopoly (counting, money skills)
Rummikub (patterns, sets, counting, numbers)
If your family is already a well-established “game-schooling” family, I’d love to hear your favorites! We’re always open to trying new games!
*Affiliate links don’t cost you any more money. They simply send a little piece of your purchase to our family. We are grateful for your support!