Playing games is fun for any holiday. For Valentine’s Day I try to have a little extra fun with games. It’s my birthday. Yes, I am a Valentine baby. Since we already have a party in the afternoon for our homeschool I still teach in the morning. On holiday’s, if I teach in the morning then we will have a party after lunch. Christmas is one holiday that I do not do school.
Seeing how popular games are with my kids I try them to help with review. Asking a bunch of questions gave me a bunch of closed answers. Homeschool games are exciting. My kids do not have up their learning guard. Playing games helps them to not feel interrogated.
There are games for every subject in homeschool. Games are a great way to add a mix of fun and learning at the same time. I plan specific games for holiday’s to add as incentive in our homeschool.
Math
This game is adjusted for my age groups. For my older children they will skip count by 11’s and 15’s to 100. My younger one will skip count by 3’s or 4’s. Memorizing the facts have been so beneficial in their math that we do lots of it.
I grab several bags of candy hearts. Each of my three children will get a bag of candy hearts in a bowl, index cards with the numbers that they are skip counting, and a scooter board.
Next, when I say “Go”, they will lay on their belly, on the scooter board. Then maneuver across the floor, going back and forth to fill their index cards with the correct number of candy hearts. The older one’s will compete, but my younger one does what he can. Skip counting candy hearts is one of our favorite homeschool games.
Language Arts
Nouns, adjectives, capitals, and sentence structure make up this interesting homeschool game. Again, it is adapted for my younger and older children. Several paper hearts are cut up and prepared for this game.
First, each child will get several paper hearts. My younger son and I will work on finding nouns to put on the hearts. Adjectives, compound verbs, sentences that have a capital and ending mark will be put on the hearts. Another part of this game is to see how many nice words or sentences they can make on the hearts. Spelling doesn’t count but more the thought. Winner of this game will have correct sentences, or adjectives if that is what they were assigned. Adverbs in place of adjectives would disqualify the paper heart.
Paper heart kindness helps them to work on words that build up each other. Homeschool games take many forms, even in kindness.
Science
Homeschool games for science can be a little more difficult to create. Making a game centered around experiments works better. For this homeschool game I use mento’s candy. Following the Valentine Theme the candy is white or pink.
First, put 1/2 cup of water in a see through cup. Next, have all of the kids lined up in front of their cups. Next, have them label their cups with a marker. After their cups are labeled place a blindfold on them. Then, have each one guess how long it will take the mento to dissolve in water. Write down all of the guesses.
Have the kids drop a mento ( it will be placed in front of them) into the water. The one with the closes guess wins. My watch is what I use as a timer. After they have dropped the mento into the water, it is ok to take off the blindfold. As the mento is dissolving in the water, if it does start to take longer than 3 minutes I pull the mento. At that point I will check the time and see whose time is closer, and how much the mento dissolved.
Follow up to the games is discussion. I always ask “What is your one takeaway today”. Each child will tell me what they learned or liked as we played the games.
Using homeschool games to increase learning, engagement and teamwork has been more and more successful each time. Games have become a regular part of our homeschool. Follow me on instagram @momsarefrugal to see some of our homeschool games each week.
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