Adding Games into Your Curriculum

by Christine Alcott

Board games make an excellent addition to any homeschooling curriculum.

Board games are not only fun, they make a great complement to any homechooling curriculum. Whether you use a traditional approach to homeschool, classical, or more free-form, games create a welcome way to develop or practice growing skills.

Games emphasize skills like math, reasoning, logic, and various social skills. Using board games to practice these skills help make learning fun, and a change from worksheets and books.

Board games can be used at any time during the homeschool year, but they can be especially helpful during the cold winter months where much time is spent indoors.

Here are some ideas for games for the different age groups. However, age recommendations are just that – approximate. Feel free to use games that fit your child’s personality best.

Preschool/Kindergarten – Games for this age-set can be very simple. The point here is to emphasize basic skills, such as counting, colors, and taking turns. Children this age are often (but not always) more interested in the game itself than in the outcome. At this age, helping children understand the give-and-take of playing games is an important skill.

• Excellent Pick: Cariboo, by Cranium (ages 3 and up) – Easy and fun, this game helps children practice shape recognition, color recognition, letter recognition, and counting in a way that is exciting. A great first game for little ones.
• Some good Preschool games: Go Fish, Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, any kind of matching game.

Early Elementary (ages 6-9) – Board games in this age group can be basic or can expand to games that are more complicated. Rules become more important at this age, and who wins and who loses is carefully noted. Again, skills like counting are still good to be emphasized at this age. However, more advanced skills like cooperation, reasoning, money skills, creative thinking, and strategy help children in many areas, in many ways.

• Excellent Pick: Blokus, by Educational Insights (ages 5 and up). Each player must place pieces of one color according to certain rules. The pieces are of all different shapes. This game emphasizes strategy and reasoning, as well as spatial perception. All of this is in a format that is very easy to learn.
• Some good Early Elementary games: Dominoes, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers, Checkers, Mancala, Mousetrap, Uno, SkipBo, No Stress Chess, Whonuu and Cadoo (both by Cranium).

Middle Childhood (ages 9-12) - Rules rule at this age! Games can be much more involved. Games of strategy and games of teamwork are good at this age.

• Excellent Pick: Apples to Apples, Jr. (ages 9 and up) – a game using reasoning, word, and thinking skills. This is a great game to get you talking, and results in some suprising explanations.
• Some good Middle Childhood games: Monopoly, the Game of Life, Clue, Jenga, Yahtzee, Sorry!, Trouble, Chess.

Teenage to Adult - By 13, many children have developed skills that allow them to play games as skillfully as any adult. Continue to look for games that use math skills, strategy, logic, and reasoning. Card games are a great way to add many of these skills in.

• Excellent Pick: Da Vinci’s Challenge, by BriarPatch (ages 8-adult). This is a fun game involving skill, strategy, and a quick eye. Play is centered around the ancient Flower of Life symbol. Players must fill in the shapes using their blocks, and points are awarded for various shapes made. This game is basically easy, but the stragegy involved is quite challenging. Best for 2 players only, although can be played in teams.
• Some good Teen to Adult games – all of the above and almost anything else! Card games, multimedia games, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Cranium, Scattergories, and the list goes on.

Obviously, these are just a few suggestions from the many games out there. Find what works for you and your children. Just remember, games make a great way to practice many educational skills in a way the whole family can enjoy!