The Homeschooler’s Guide to Game Schooling

Before we get into the subject of game schooling, I want to share some benefits of playing games in general. 

To give you just a little backstory, games were a huge part of my life before I ever had a family of my own. When I was 9, my dad died. We were below the poverty line before that, but that along with my mom getting sick spiraled into us growing up incredibly poor, not broke, poor. Like majority of my life my mom received less than $1500 per month including food stamps to support our family of 6. Games were a perfect fit because they were a free way of entertainment. Often times, we would pair games with 2 week long camping trips. These trips happened several times a year, and combined with leaky tents, our white, broke down "kidnapper van" as my friends called it, all the chips and hot dogs we could stomach, and endless hours of fishing were a highlight of my child hood. 

During college my mom would plan camping trips during my visits home, and I even took my husband (then boyfriend) home a few times for these trips. To get the full scope of how games put a positive spin on my childhood, and how they can do the same for your kids, make sure you check out the corresponding video.

Now, at this time, I thought all families lived like this. 20 years later I realize just how poor we were, but I'm so thankful to my mom for getting creative and helping us make these core memories. My boyfriend (then husband) wasn't super impressed with our way of living, but he was a good sport about it although he did sleep in his car with it's heated seats vs sleeping in our run down tents. I still laugh at him for that. He grew up in an upper middle class home where their idea of camping looked much different than ours, and games weren't a thing in their home. Like a good boyfriend however, he didn't tell me how much he disliked these trips until many years later. 

Fast forward about a decade and add one miracle daughter, and I knew I wanted to incorporate games into our household. What I didn't want to do however, was play endless hours of candy land and chutes and ladders. Having said that, one thing I'm going to be sharing with you guys are some family friendly games that your kids will love to play, but the adults in your household will equally enjoy. Grandpa Becks is one brand of games that is PERFECT for the entire family, and at the end of this blog, I'll have several other lists of family friendly games. We've affectionately become known as the "game family." Anytime we invite anyone over to our home, we play games. Take a bus trip with a group of kids? You can be sure that Ms. Tonya has some kind of travel friendly game in her purse. Invite us over for dinner? Of course we can bring the games! It's become somewhat of a joke, but we love it none the less. 

Games will help you and your family...

Develop strong communication skills

Learn to follow directions

Practice critical thinking

Learn how to strategy

Develop strong listening skills

Practice good sportsmanship

At this stage in our life, I still had 0 intention in adding game schooling to our homeschooling, but I did see the value in having games in our life on a purely fun level. That was until my daughter, Glori, had a real tough time with Phonics. I wish adding a fun game for practice would've been my first resort, but truthfully, it didn't come until months and months of tears and frustration on both of our part. That's when I broke down and bought my first game specifically for "game schooling". 

As you can see, no more tears. At the end of this page I'll have all of our favorite games linked and categorized by subject. 

Since then, we've incorporated many educational games into our home and regularly partake in "game schooling". 

Game Schooling is just using games to enhance the learning experience. That's it! If you'd like more info on incorporating games into your own homeschool, download the free "Guide to Game Schooling" handout below. 

We are still traditional homeschoolers, meaning that we follow a curriculum majority of days, so here are three ways how we like to incorporate "game schooling" into our routine. 

In the beginning of our Game Schooling journey, I would have a goal of so many hours per week of playing games in addition to our normal school. This worked well, and we got to where we were consistently playing 7+ hours per week of games. This sometimes looked like an hour per day, sometimes it was 2-3 hours 3 times a week, and sometimes it was an all day Saturday playing games with friends. There's not a right or wrong way, just set a goal of how many hours you want to play and then plan those hours according to your schedule for the week. 

This is how we Game School today. At the beginning of the week when I lesson plan, I take out any practice worksheets and replace them with games. For example, if I see that Glori has two days of multiplication practice sheets this week, we'll schedule in 30 min of multiplication games instead. In addition to helping break up the monotony of work book learning, it helps your child enjoy practicing new skills vs dreading "another worksheet". 

You may choose to do this for a day, a week, or a month, but game school breaks basically means throwing out all "traditional school work" and playing games all day instead. As I'm typing this, we're actually about to go on a modified Game School break. My mom is coming in to town for a couple weeks, so we're going to be playing a ton of games. I'll still have Glori do reading and spelling on her own as well as handwriting, but beyond that it's game time! 

Every family should play games together.

Game Schooling can fit into any homeschool routine.

Below are our favorites listed by subject. Some of the links are affiliate links. 

Math

Science

History/Geography

Reading/Phonics

Misc Fun Games

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