how we homeschool: game schooling

 

one of the biggest reasons i wanted to homeschool ella is so that "school" would not be awful for her.  :D she has always loved to learn, and i didn't want that love to disappear in a sea of worksheets and textbooks.   i know that most schoolteachers work really hard to make learning fun but what i think what they often miss is that FUN, in and of itself, can actually be educational on it's own.

that is why i lean more and more toward what i call "game schooling".  basically, we play games, and from those games we learn something. :D  but the point has to be the game itself--if there is even a hint of "school" involved, the fun gets sucked right out of it.

these are the games that we've been playing this week:

• shut-the-box (arithmetic, logic, strategy)--thank you lala!
• madlibs (vocabulary, parts of speech)
• scrabble (spelling)--ella got the apple package during our apple study unit
• marbulous (science)--ella calls this "the contraption maker"
• color explosion sheets (art)
• wii fit and wii sports resort (physical fitness)
• view-master cards (reading)

we also make up our own games, such as when we adopt laura but live in her time (history, social studies), or when we rewrite nursery rhymes or fairytales so they include a pie (literature, composition).

there are so many great games to choose from that i truly believe a child could do almost nothing but play games and have fun and still learn just as much, perhaps more, than by doing just "school" alone. that's worth at least 10 bonus points right there.

we're always on the look-out for more games to play so please leave a comment with your suggestions!  

Comments

[Kimberley]

game suggestions: mancala, Wildcraft, Endango, and Qwirkle; we game school, too.

[rowena___.]

oooh, i'll have to look up wildcraft, endango, and qwirkle! thank you for the suggestions.

[Cheap Computers Canada]

This sure is motivating enough and i also would like to start of with my kids this way.