I bet most of us have fond memories of playing board games. Whether inside a traditional public school classroom at recess during the winter months or while we were at home with our family. Maybe you had a family game night? Or pulled the board games out while a snowstorm hit? There are so many fun board games, and if you can believe it, using board games for homeschool can easily be added to your curriculum and help your child learn some valuable skills along the way!
Using Board Games for Homeschool Curriculum
When you decide to homeschool, you have certain freedoms, and one of those freedoms is to make your homeschool work for your family. You do not need to make your children feel like they are in a public school and, to be honest, it is often best if you don’t. One of the more popular terms in homeschool is “Gameschooling.” Learning through play works, and not just for the younger kids. Here are some great games you can use in different subjects during your week!
Language Arts Board Games for Homeschool
There are so many different elements when teaching language arts. You have writing, grammar, reading skills, and more. You might make the learning engaging and fun by using games to help learn and reinforce skills.
Mad Libs- Get your kids thinking about adjectives, nouns, verbs, and more while developing funny stories they are sure to enjoy!
Boggle– A get spelling practice game where your students try to create as many three or more letter words as they can from the letters shown on the board. Plus, they will love shaking up the Boggle container after every round!
Bananagrams– A mixture between boggle and scrabble, this game is another excellent spelling practice game where each player creates their own “crossword” out of tiles. They even have different versions for younger kiddos!
Apples To Apples- This is another great game that helps children practice using nouns and adjectives to create fun descriptions. Each player has to make the judge laugh or get the best adjective or noun that best matches the card on the table.
Rory’s Story Cubes- Players roll the story dice and develop a story on the spot using all the cubes. Multiple sets are available such as mystery, heroes, and voyages. You can easily incorporate writing and have your children roll the dice and write down their story on paper!
Math Board Games for Homeschool
There are so many games you can quickly put into your homeschooling curriculum when it comes to math. There are so many options, and your children are sure to love them!
Yahtzee– Each person takes turns and tries to roll different scoring combinations. Once everyone has filled in their combination boxes (13 of them), the game ends, and everyone adds up their scores to see who scored the highest—perfect way to practice addition. There are also combinations like small straight and three of a kind, which can help younger children with number recognition and number sequencing.
Proof- This is a challenging mental math game but so much fun. There are nine cards on the table, and each player has to try and create equations using the cards on the table. They can use multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, or a combo of them. Once they make the equation, they get the cards. The winner has the most cards when the game ends.
Blokus– Players take turns placing their 21 pieces on the board: each piece must touch another of the same color, but only at the corners! Stake your claim and protect your territory by fitting as many pieces on the board as possible while strategically blocking your opponents! The game ends when no more pieces can be placed down, and the player with the lowest number remaining wins!
Money Bags- The perfect game to help your children practice their money skills. Collect, count, and exchange money to get to the finish line. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins!
Sum Swamp- Race through the swamp, facing different math challenges and meeting swamp creatures along the way. This game encourages basic math skills through fun gameplay!
Science Board Games for Homeschool
Do your kids love STEM? Science toys, hands-on subscription boxes, and videos on YouTube make finding science activities easy. But you can also teach Science through board games, and here are some games that encourage STEM learning through play.
Mastermind or Mastermind for Kids- The code-cracker tries to figure out the code maker’s secret code by putting different combinations of colors together on the game board. The code maker gives clues using different color markers to help the code cracker!
Periodic: A Game of Elements- Help your children easily learn chemistry with this game. Players move across the periodic table to collect elements using the periodic trends.
Snap Circuits– Your children can easily explore electricity with these snap circuits. With over 500 experiments and 76 pieces, they are sure to have some fun. Plus, there is no soldering and no tools, and the circuits just snap together!
Wildcraft!- This game is the perfect mix of learning and adventure. Your children will learn about 25 different edible and medicinal plants, where they grow, and how to use them! They will cross logs, slide down waterfalls, and wander down deer trails. Plus, there is no reading required!
Operation– We have all had the opportunity to feel the buzz through our fingers with the game of Operation—the perfect game to learn body parts and math. Children have to figure out how much money they have collected after the game. Plus, you could easily teach different body parts included in the game!
Social Studies Board Games for Homeschool
Social Studies is another subject that incorporates many topics like history and geography. These games will bring the subject to life, and kids will have fun too.
Ticket to Ride– Travel across the country with this train adventure game where players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities through North America!
Scrambled States of America- Using different Find-It cards and trying to get matches to the Find-It cards is the whole objective of the game. However, players need to know capitals, states, and more to try and get matches!
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?- You may remember this tv show or computer game. It was educational, and you used clues to try and find Carman Sandiego. Each player tries to be the first one to find Carmen using clues and reasoning.
Trekking the National Parks- Each player takes part in a race across the country. The goal is to earn the most points by claiming National Parks and collecting bonus stones. Players must figure out a way to get on the trail and make tactical decisions along the way!
7 Wonders- Players pull cards over multiple rounds and carefully build towards long-term goals. Along the way, each player must pay attention to their neighbors because everyone has the same end goal, to win and rule the world!
Bring on the Games
This list is not complete. There are many, many more games you could include for all subject areas! But, we hope it’s a good starting point to see that you can easily incorporate fun and play into your everyday learning.
Remember, your homeschool doesn’t need to look like the local public school down the road. You can find alternative teaching methods and bring as much fun and games into your day as you wish!
