Tag: Gameschooling

Educational Games and Resources by subject

Tracy

educational games by subject | learning fun | gameschooling

My active kids love to learn (or show what they’ve learned) with games. Educational games have been an important part of our unit celebrations for years, and this year, I’ve included more in our daily routine to help us get through our Monday struggles. While we don’t use those educational games as our primary curriculum, I definitely want to incorporate more of them into our regular curriculum next year.

Which means I’ve been scouting, keeping an eye out for top-notch educational games to add to our collection. I’ve got a pretty good list going with lots of great educational game ideas for the different subject areas. Not all are necessarily on my wish list, but they make it onto yours. So I’m including all of my scouting work here for you. 

Educational Games for Math
  1. Sector 18 (formerly Number Rings)*
  2. Fraction Matchin’
  3. Smath* or Mobi Max
  4. Even Steven’s Odd
  5. Incan Gold (division)
  6. Pizza Fraction Fun
  7. Race to the Treasure (grid coordinates)
  8. Number Ninjas

* We own these games, and I absolutely love them!

Educational Games for Science
  1. Into the Forest (natural food chain relationships)
  2. Hit the Habitat Trail (animals & habitats)—on my wish list!
  3. Sci or Fi Files
  4. Some Body Human Anatomy game—on my wish list, too!
Educational Games for Social Studies/History

My list here is pretty short, but there are a ton of free games you can find online. A couple of my favorite websites to search are Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool and Ellen McHenry. We’ve also gotten a number of favorites through our notebooking activity packs from Homeschool in the Woods. We also own a pack of Professor Noggin ancient history cards that we used for history Headbandz game at our last unit celebration.

  1. Passport to Culture
  2. Professor Noggin cards series
  3. Classical Historian history card games
Educational Games for Language Arts
  1. Pharaoh’s Phonics
  2. Rhyme Out
  3. Story Cubes
  4. Alphabet Island
  5. Word Pirates (spelling)*
  6. Bananagrams (own it, and love it!)
  7. Stepping Stones: the Expository Writing Game*
  8. The Storymatic Kids
  9. Tell Tale Pocket Game
  10. Cooking up Sentences: parts of speech game *
  11. Comprehension Blast Off game (reading comprehension skills) *
  12. Create-a-Story Board Game

*These games are on my wish list as well!

Another great resource to look for hands-on learning resources and educational games is TeacherspayTeachers.com. What other resources, websites, and educational games do you recommend? Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments as well. I’d love to know what your favorites are.

Surviving Homeschool Mondays (and even liking it)

Tracy1 Comment on Surviving Homeschool Mondays (and even liking it)

surviving homeschool mondays | homeschooling on the hard days | ideas for a casual learning routine

All year I have fought the battle of “Monday”—coerced, threatened, plotted, and plodded through the toughest day of the week for us. I know Mondays are tough for most of mankind, but being a pastor’s family, Mondays seem to be that much more daunting. We come into the week empty. 

Though I did know enough about our family and our routine to keep our Monday calendar empty, I caught myself demanding that much more from our homeschool because it was one of our few days spent entirely at home. I mean, just think of what we can get done! Except that we weren’t. I cracked the whip, but everyone else dragged their feet, and the day seemed endless. It seriously took my kids three times as long to do the same assignments on Monday as it did any other day of the week. A twenty minute math lesson any other day was going to take over an hour on Monday. Surviving homeschool Mondays became such a drudgery, and we all ended the day so out of sorts and cranky, that I finally decided to revamp our Mondays entirely. 

Introducing our new routine for…

Surviving Homeschool Mondays

Our new Monday schedule consists of three parts: meetings, projects, and games.

Monday Meetings: Okay, this is actually the only part of our typical Monday I kept. We’ve been doing this all year. Monday Meeting is when I meet with each kid, look over the previous week’s assignments, hand over their new assignment sheet and week’s work, and discuss the week with them (events, extra-curriculars, projects, etc.) For my fifth grader, this is my primary contact with him, nearly the only time all week we are together. The rest of the week, he works independently. For my third grader, this gives her the scope of the week and the expectations, but I will still meet with her each day for math and grammar. 

Projects: The bulk of the day is spent on projects. Sometimes, this includes notebooking projects and a read-aloud. Other times, this is our major art project time where we sculpt and paint and create. This is also our primary science experiment day. It’s our day to make the big messes and do those projects that take lots of time. I’ve loved this part of the routine. Because I have very little planned on Mondays now, I feel like I can relax with the messes and allow them the time to really enjoy their projects, rather than rushing through so that we “get to everything” before dinner. And trust me, Relaxed Mommy is a whole lot more fun than Stressed Mommy.

homeschooling on hard days | projects, games, & casual learning

Gameschooling: I’m embracing some “Gameschooling” on Mondays, as well, particularly for math. Our new favorite right now is Number Rings. All my kids can play and be challenged at each of their learning levels. I love it! So instead of the workbook math, we play games and embrace hands-on math lessons. Next year, I want to develop this even more, expand our games collection, and include some other subject areas.

Occasionally, I may also throw a DVD into our Monday mix of learning; my kids love “Bill Nye the Science Guy” DVDs from our library. Typically, we’ll have our meetings and game time in the morning, eat lunch, then start on our projects after lunch. 

I hesitated for so long to make this switch in our routine, worrying about falling behind in our work or ruining my kids’ character and work ethic. But the opposite has been true. Mondays are now paced to allow us to rest and recharge from Sundays, and we are better prepared for the rest of our week. And the kids have worked hard those other four days to get assignments done. It’s been a win-win all around, and I’m so glad I finally gave it a try. Not only are we surviving Homeschool Mondays, we are actually enjoying them.