Gameschooling

Gameschooling. Using games as a tool while homeschooling. Do you do it?

I’ll admit, we played more games when the kids were younger.  But now that the days are getting cooler and shorter, it feels right to tuck in on the couch with a game of Othello. 

There is a whole huge market of educational games out there. Games that teach specific skills or subjects. Beyond Wild Craft, we don’t have any educational, subject based games.  I think as parents, whether homeschooling or not, we tend to see everything through the eyes of “what skills will this teach?”, and that is SO not me. I don’t add games into our homeschool days so my children will learn something.  I just enjoy playing games, chatting, laughing and connecting with my kids! We don’t need to always justify our activities with a list of “skills learned”. 

I thought for this blog post I would create a list of board games we played at different stages in our journey. There are so many fun family games out there! We didn’t really start playing board games with our children until they were seven, but there were a few that we would pull out when they were kindergarten aged.

Kindergarten 4/5-6 years old
Kissen-klau – This is a German game, but I have seen similar games around in Waldorf stores or stores that carry European brands. Essentially it is a game where little elves want to sleep but an imp keeps on stealing their pillows. It is super cute, I made up a little story before we played the game so my children would have a frame of reference. All the pieces are made of wood with a coloured die as the game piece.
Candyland – a classic, very easy to play, and we would sometimes work as teams to collect all the candy instead of using candy as a negative.
Apple Picking – This game isn’t made anymore, but it is very similar to Haba’s Orchard game. There was a tree and it had all these little apples that we needed to pick before the happy apple worm puzzle was completed.

Grades 1-3, 7-9/10 year olds
Labyrinth – by Ravensburger this is a race through a moving labyrinth as you collect your treasure.
Wild Craft – a cooperative game where you collect berries for grandma and must get up and down the mountain before dark. Throughout the game you get ailments and use your herb cards to help recovery.
Snakes and Ladders – Climb the ladders, slide down the snakes, in a race to get to the top!
Connect Four – drop checkers pieces into a frame to get four in a row in any direction

Grades 4-6, 10-12 year olds
Mancala – a simple strategy game where you must collect the most stones as you move around the game board dropping stones into cups.
Checkers – compete to have the last piece on the board
Tenzie – Each player gets ten dice, everyone drops their dice at the same time and race to get all their dice to face the chosen number by rolling those dice that don’t yet show that number.
Dominoes – classic, with many different ways to play
Sorry – we play the German version (because my family is Austrian) Mensch ärgere dich nicht, but it follows the same principles.
Othello – a strategy game where you place discs on a board and try to flip all your opponent’s discs over to your colour.

Grades 7-8, 13/14 year olds
Yahtzee – use dice to create different combinations and aim for the highest score possible
Battleship – use coordinates to try and hit the ships of your opponent
Blockus – try and fill as much of the game board as possible with your colour blocks, made harder because the blocks are all different shapes
Q-bits – race to use your blocks to complete the pattern on the card.
Monopoly – NOT a favourite of mine, but my husband loves it and we even found a farm version that I actually enjoy!

We also played various card and pencil games that I will make into another post one day as to not overwhelm! What board games has your family played and loved?

Until next time,
Marina