Let The Games Begin- Part 1!

*Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click and make a purchase.*

Do you like playing board games? How about card games? Do you like playing them with your kids, or just other adults? 

You may have heard the term "gameschool" before, but have you tried it? You might have and not even realized! 

I'm not an expert on gameschooling. It's something I sort of stumbled upon early last year and our family embraced it immediately. I still feel like a newbie when it comes to all the different game options that have come out. For me, board games growing up were the traditional ones like: Monopoly, Scrabble, Stratego, Chess, Checkers, Mancala, Sorry, Trouble, Trivial Pursuit, etc. 
Card games were along the lines of: Uno, Skip-Bo, Solitaire, War, Crazy 8's, Old Maid, 52 Card Pick-Up if your friends were jerks, and so on. 
I'm sure there were plenty more that I didn't list, but to be honest, we weren't a game family. I have played more games as an adult, with my kids, in the last year than I did my entire childhood. 

Have you seen some of the new games that keep coming out? They are SO much better than many of the common ones most of us remember! Don't get me wrong, I still love Uno, Scrabble, Chess, and plenty more of the classic games. These newer games are just so.... I don't know. More appealing, maybe? Game designers have come a long way in terms of creativity.

For example, have you played Ticket To Ride? As adults we look at it as monopolizing train routes to make the most connections. (Aerobiz, anyone?)
For kids, this could be geography, history, reading, strategy. T2R has different boards for various countries to purchase, or customize your own, and learn different locations all over the globe! Or even customize a map and cards to make it relevant to time periods throughout history. T2R is a family favorite here. It can be a lengthy game, depending on the routes you get, or as short as everyone works together to create train routes to all of the destinations! 

Also, Sleeping Queens, a card game favorite here and it's super easy to play. You can finish a game in about 10mins, or choose to play to an agreed upon point goal. The object is to 'wake up' as many queens and have the most points at the end of the game. Simply put, you can lay down number cards as singles, doubles, or with a simple math problem (2+3=5), in order to get new cards that may be a king, dragon, wand, potion, knight, or other numbers. For your younger kiddos, this is awesome! It was very simple for my Lil Monster to master. Since then we've moved on to simple multiplication. I'm considering creating more cards to use with the game to add in more math skills in the game. 

There are games like Ubongo, Make n Break, Dimensions, Dr. Eureka, Dr. Beaker, Dr. Microbe, Solitaire Chess, Code Breaker, to name a few, that are geared towards problem solving. These "puzzle" style games make wonderful family games, but can also be played solo. That is a huge bonus if you are working with another of your children, or trying to knock out some chores, and you hear the famous "I'm bored." Let them play a game and mentally applaud yourself for not giving into undesired screen time. (I'm not against screen time. We are big electronics junkies here. Electronics, for us, is like opening a can of worms. The second I say "okay, go ahead" I might as well plan that they will be glued to the device of their choosing until they get hungry or I send them to bed.)

We also love cooperative games. Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Forbidden Desert are the first ones that come to mind. In these, each player has a unique set of abilities to help you, as a team, reach/fulfill a goal. My hubs and I have sat and played all of these on our own and with our kids. When Lil Monster wasn't quite reading yet, it made things a tad more challenging, but it was still fun. And that's the point, isn't it? To get down and play with them! Teamwork, critical thinking, interaction, all necessary skills to have and these games are great for that!

There are so many amazing games out there. If you aren't sure how one will suit your family and don't want to risk purchasing a dud, look up the gameplay on YouTube. There are plenty of videos for most games that often times explain the directions better than the booklets you get in the box. That's how we learned to play Dragonwood, Virulence, Linkage, and so many others.

Also, don't forget that the rules should be seen as guidelines. I promise, the gaming police won't show up at your door if the written set of instructions isn't feasible, or fun, for your family. That's when House Rules become a fantastic solution! Play a round or two of the game as instructed and see how changing it up a bit would make it better. Once you do, write them down on some notebook paper and keep it in the game box. Don't be like me and figure out house rules, forget them, play the game again and get halfway through before you realize that's not how your family had planned to play that game for now. 

Even some of the most ridiculous sounding games can be fun. Others are still ridiculous. Pop the Pig for the younger crowd encourages counting. Operation and Toss Across? Coordination and dexterity. Pie in the face? Fear. Okay, maybe not, but I cringe every time Lil Monster suggests it. 

Do you need more information? Is there a certain game you're thinking of and not sure what skills it might enhance? Feel free to ask me! I'm friends with several moms who could probably, most likely, answer your questions in even greater detail than I. One in particular would be Meg over at the Homeschool Gameschool blog! She has a lot of great resources!

How does a typical gameschool day look for us, and how do I classify it as "school"? We still do a lot of the more traditional school stuff, but sometimes, or several times, you just need to play a game to really GET it.
Let me show you.

Check Math-math
Sleeping Queens- math
Prime Climb- math
Ticket to Ride- language arts/history/geography
Historical Conquest- history
Map It!-geography
Virulence- science
Linkage- science
Scabs n Guts- health
Foodle- health
Rory's Story Cubes- reading/creative writing
Silly Rhymes- reading/language arts
Volangulary- language arts
Timeline- history
Chess- strategy
Code Breaker- strategy
D&D- strategy
Pokemon- strategy
Yahtzee- math   pro-tip-> use more dice to speed up game time!
Evolution- science
Compose Yourself- music

I know we play so many more games and I'm just not thinking of them. Mom brain strikes again! Ha ha! I'm sure you get the idea. There are a lot of ways to make learning fun and not in the typical reading and writing sense. 

And yes, there are a bunch of video games and apps out there that are, or can be, just as educational! K1 and K2 constantly surprise me with their knowledge of history. When I ask how they knew so much they would reply with Assassin's Creed, or Call of Duty. We have so many history books lying around, not to mention the power of Google, they said it was nothing to fact-check to see if the information was indeed correct. Proud mom moment! My little fact-checkers 😂

I'm currently working on an Idea List on Amazon. I haven't been able to add too many of our 'tried and true' games due to some sort of glitch on the site. I'm not sure if that's due to it being a new program, or Amazon was just having a bad day. Just know that I will be updating it as I can! I'll add the link to the top of my page once it has more content, but for now you can see what I have so far here. 

Finally, turn game night, or day, into a fun time the whole family will enjoy! Make it something everyone looks forward to and you may see an uptick in your quality family time. Be silly, make house rules, set up some background music and make snacks. Those will be the times you all will remember for years to come. Chances are, those memories will create new traditions your kids will pass on to their families as they get older. 


Don't have the money to spend on a bunch of games? That's OKAY! Check out your local thrift stores. We always find a bunch of great new to us games for a fraction of the cost. Don't forget to check and make sure all of the necessary pieces are there before you buy! If it's a dice here or a pawn there, I wouldn't sweat it. You can always borrow from other games, or find extra pieces in the odds and ends section of some thrift stores. 

Want more of the DIY types? Keep an eye out for "Let The Games Begin- Part 2!" that I'll be posting soon! There are even MORE fabulous games out there, just waiting for you to print them out and enjoy with your family!

Here are 'some' of our days playing games!