Have you ever been accused by a non-homeschooling parent or family member of hanging out in your pajamas and playing games with your kids all day? Here are some ideas so you can successfully do just that – hang out in your pajamas, laugh and play games and call it school.
Here are some Educational Games Perfect for Homeschool
- Compile a stash of educational games. There are scores of premade games out there just waiting to be purchased at your local school supply stores. There are catalogs with tons and tons of games and toys that teach as well. I like to use such games for numbers, letters, science facts, and historical facts.
- Bingo! There are many options to buy or easily make such as Parts of Speech Bingo, Math Facts Bingo, Spanish Vocabulary Bingo, to name just a few. I make my kids find their own spines, femur, patella, scapula, etc. when we are playing Body Part Bingo.
- Use toy soldiers to recreate historic battles
- A deck of cards (minus the face cards) makes a great math tool. For example, try Addition War. Follow the rules of War with each player turning over two cards at a time. Players add the value of their two cards and the largest sum wins. Can be used for multiplication and subtraction, too.
- Scavenger hunts are also always a hit. With a little planning and preparation, you can use this sort of game for your kids to practice reading, following directions, figuring out math problems, or solving riddles. You can also include map reading to this wonderful game and adjust it for all ages.
- Paper Pizzas for practicing fractions.
- Measuring cups and a large plastic container (such as an under the bed box) are ideal for letting kids measure rice, dry beans, or play dough.
- Lincoln Logs can be counted and sorted; stacked and measured.
- Playing Store is great for practicing how to add money or counting back change correctly.
- Strategy Games are everywhere and so important for building thinking skills! These games can be as simple as mancala (the African rock game) or checkers. More challenging strategy games include chess and Othello. Games such as Forbidden Island facilitate strategic thinking as well as group problem-solving.
- Deductive Reasoning Games such as Head Banz and Guess Who? reinforce important thinking skills.
So, pick out your best pair of pajamas so you can take pictures and post on the internet to show all your non-homeschooling friends and family members just how fun learning can be!
Lisa Blauvelt (with her family and three dogs, two cats, a horse, pony, donkey, two red eared turtles, a fluctuating number of tadpoles and baby fish, and various other creatures collected by her adventurous boys) puts her education degrees to work at her home in the Deep South. There she teaches not only her own children, but others who come to her home to learn. Her decade long experience in teaching children to read will soon be published as a 476 page guide for parents.