Category: Homeschool

Learning with Games

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There are so many ways families choose to homeschool their children. Often, parents settle on a mixture of things that work best for their family. Today, I’m going to talk about a method I don’t hear much of, though I believe it is worth it: Game schooling!

What is “game schooling”?

Exactly what it sounds like! Learning through playing games, typically board game style games. Many of us are familiar with the classic board games and may even have a regular family game night! Games are loads of fun and there is a game for everyone out there. Some games incorporate a lot of reading, others require different types of math skills. Other games explore different science, nature, or cultural themes. When families decide to incorporate games into their child’s homeschool experience, they consider the educational topics they want to cover and find games that help children practice these skills. Below, I have compiled a collection of games I use, as well as games recommended to me. Jump to Math games, Language Arts Games, or Science games!

Math Games

A classic game from my own childhood, and that my own kids enjoy, is The Allowance Game. Players move around the board, collecting allowance, spending money, saving money, and maybe even owning a lemonade stand. Players learn how much coins are worth, how to add money, and how to make change.

To help kids learn their fractions, Fracto is a fun and easy game. With multiple ways to play, your kids are more likely to want to keep playing– and keep practicing their fractions!

So, we have not actually played this game, but it has been on my wishlist for a while now! Target is a game where players need to reach their target by using addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. With so many options, it is a suitable game for multiple age groups.

Another favorite math game: Tiny Polka Dot. This game has been great because it is not one single game. There are over a dozen games to play for kids ranging from three to eight+. All the games use the included number cards, some of which have numerals and others which use dots and blocks.

Finally, recommended to me by another family, is Real World Math: Unexpected Events. This is a math game for older kids that helps them practice their math skills applied to personal finances, similar to the real world.

Language Arts Games

One of my favorite games growing up- and that I’ve shared with my kids- was Boggle, Jr. This is a fun way to practice letter matching and spelling. Boggle, Jr has a set of cards with words on the bottom. Depending on the child’s ability, they can either match the word or practice spelling the word with the letter cubes. For older kids, Boggle can be a lot of fun, too! Boggle is a simple word search game that can be played independently or with a partner.

Learning parts of speech has been described as boring to many people I’ve spoken with over the years. How do you make parts of speech fun? With Silly Sentences! Kids love making silly sentences with this game. Children use color coded puzzle pieces to build sentences as silly (or tame) as they please.

There are so many games where reading is an important part of the game, but one of our favorites is Apples to Apples, Junior edition. Designed with kids 9 and up in mind, children practice reading, make comparisons, and build their vocabulary. We have a lot of laughs playing both the “junior” and the “classic” editions of the game.

Of course, no language arts game would be complete without mentioning the classic game, Scrabble. If you are unfamiliar, this is a fun crossword style game where players build words to earn points. Children can practice spelling, learn new vocabulary, and practice using a dictionary.

Science Games

I’m sure many of you have built a marble run before, but maybe not one like this! Gravitrax is like no other marble run I’ve seen. Like others, gravity is a big component of this marble run. But with this, children also get to experiment with things like magnetism. Plus, there are some really interesting expansion sets you can get – such as a trampoline! The link below will bring you to a smaller starter set, but there are larger ones as well as many expansion sets to explore!

Are your kids interested in engineering? Or maybe you want a fun way to teach simple machines to your kids. This kit is a lot of fun because it comes with materials and instructions to build simple machines (things such as inclined plane, levers, screws, etc). After your child builds a simple machine, he/she can play with them to see how they work!

A final option is the Botley 2.0 Robot. My oldest is interested in robotics and this little robot was a fun way to let her explore robotics and coding. Botley comes with a booklet that explains how the programming works, has suggested activities, and your child set up his/her own programs. I think this is a great first step into learning how programming works.

Geography

Ticket to Ride is a family favorite; I actually got it as a gift for my husband and we all fell in love with it! We have the original version, in which players seek to build train routes across the US and some Canadian cities. There are other versions that take place in other areas of the world.

Have you ever heard of Continent Race? While we haven’t played this yet, it was a game recommended to me by followers. This is a game designed to teach children world geography and flags. My favorite part though, is that this game was designed by a six-year-old!

What games would you add?

This is just a handful of games that exist. What are your favorite games? Let me know in the comments!

Surprise! Summer School, Here We Come

I never thought I’d say this, but we’re doing summer school! All at my children’s request. While the year felt successful, my kids enjoyed it, I enjoyed it… I was looking forward to a break. Summers in the sprinkler, swimming, summer hikes and nature walks, and lemonade. I’ve always been a firm believer in letting children have a more relaxed summer.

Then, last week, my oldest said, “Mom, we haven’t done school in a while.”

I reminded her it was summer, yet she was very excited to have a little school time. So, we’re doing summer school. I’ve been less structured with work and expectations. I’m still making sure we take advantage of the summer activities available to us.

My original plans for the summer were having weekly art lessons and science lessons. Summer seemed like a great time to focus on these lessons, especially as we can work on them outdoors. We have been doing video chats with a cousin while we do the activities and it’s been a lot of fun for everyone. And, of course, we’ve been working on reading regularly.

We love to hike, especially in the summer!

Child Led

As far as my own goals for my children and educational requirements, I feel my they have passed and even surpassed what I expected for the end of the year. As I am not worried about their education, I was not interested in pushing for summer school, other than enjoyable yet educational extra activities. As a Montessori teacher though, I also believe it is important to “follow the child.”

So, when they asked for new lessons and to start doing school again, of course I said yes!

School, r e l a x e d

Our normal school day had a fairly strict morning routine and schedule. Typically, we had five days a week and about 3-4 hours a day. I had thorough plans of what lessons to give and what areas of study to encourage. Now that we are apparently doing summer school, I am doing much less planning and being far more flexible in how much time we spend on schoolwork.

One of the activities my daughter was most excited about was a workbook of all things! But, it is truly one of the best workbooks I’ve found. Made by Waseca Biomes, it is a portfolio all about the continent of Europe. Starting in the grasslands of Europe, your child gets to imagine they are traveling throughout Europe and visiting each biome. There are a large variety of activities and topics. The workbook matches up well with the European biome cards for elementary.

We’ve been working on this together. The reading level is above where my daughter is anyway, but so far it has been fun and interesting working together on it!

As my kids work on school activities, I feel both surprised and proud. The love of learning is being instilled in my children – they’re working on things simply because they’re curious and want to learn more. What can be better? My youngest has been especially interested in counting, and we’re counting everything. She’s nearly mastered her 1 to 1 correspondence and has been eyeing the sandpaper numbers.

As we reach the middle of summer, what has surprised you about your children’s summer activities? What has not surprised you?

How to Make Your Own Montessori Pin Map

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The Montessori pin maps are one of my favorite geography materials in an elementary classroom. This material is a wonderful way to engage children in learning world geography. Using an atlas for accuracy, children place pin labels on maps to name countries, major cities, capitals, and major waterways. It is a time-consuming activity. Upon completion, children often feel proud of themselves and the work they have done.

Unfortunately, the cost of adding this material to a homeschooling environment is typically too much. The complete set is around $1,000. For our family, this was certainly unaffordable. After some thought, and browsing the internet for alternatives, I decided to try a Do-It-Yourself project. The cost was quite low, and my older daughter became very interested in the process, which was a bonus!

Materials Needed

It took me a long time to settle on the specific materials I would use and how I wanted the map boards to look. Here is what I finally decided on:

Lots of Dots

Since my daughter is interested in studying Europe next, I decided to start with a pin map of Europe first. I opened the atlas to a political map of Europe and got out my printed map. First, I made large red dots approximately where each capital city is located. Since we are using toothpicks for our “pins,” I made sure each dot was larger than a toothpick in diameter. I chose red dots, as many maps use red dots and stars to designate cities.

Next, I made large black dots for placing the name of the countries. I chose to do this after the capitals to make sure I did not place a black dot where a red dot should have been. Once that was completed, I made blue dots on the major bodies of water. If you have a map that lines major rivers, that would be great! I did not have one on hand so I stuck to seas in and around Europe.

So. Many. Dots.

Creating the Board

Once I got all those dots filled in (and double-checked to make sure I didn’t miss any!), I glued the paper to one of the cork boards. I placed the paper toward the bottom, so there were a few inches above the map. This way, my kids could place the toothpicks in the cork to be ready before they need them, making it easier to find each name.

While The cork board was set to the side to dry, I printed and cut labels. To help the children sort the different flags, I put a black, red, or blue dot on each flag, front and back. I wrote the name of the country, capital, or water body on the front. On the back, I have a small color image of the continent (e.g. a red image of Europe) and the word country, capital, or water body. I folded in half and glued them onto toothpicks.

The finished product!

After the map was completely dry, I used a toothpick to pock holes in each of the dots on the map. Ideally, each dot was larger than the toothpick, so the color is still visible with the hole. I had to make a couple dots larger, which I felt was important because I wanted the children to be able to match the colored dots on the label to the one on the map.

I keep the pins in a small food storage container when the map is not in use. The pin maps are stored on a shelf, stacked neatly. I may label the front of each map to make it easier to find the one they want, but I have not done that yet.

This was a time-consuming project- probably over an hour for one map, but it was worth it to us. I enjoyed working on it and I liked the involvement of my children. I hope you found this helpful and maybe even inspirational – even if the inspiration was to buy them already made!

Nouns! More than Just a Person, Place, or Thing

As the school year winds down, I have been going over the educational goals for my children and planning for the upcoming year. From years of teaching, I have found from experience it’s best to do this well before summer break begins, while everything is fresh in my head. I look at the thing that did (and didn’t!) work, concepts we will be working on next, and materials we may need.

Which brings me to nouns! We have a lot of grammar material, as I knew I’d need it in the upcoming years. For a bulk of our grammar work, we use traditional Montessori materials. We actually have this grammar card set from Montessori Print Shop. This option is color borders only, but there is another bundle that is solid color, which is closer to traditional Montessori grammar materials; I prefer the borders to save on ink!

All I find lacking in the traditional grammar material set is the noun exploration. There are so many types of nouns! I typically see these learned through additional grammar materials in Montessori classrooms. After the noun work is mastered from the grammar boxes, I move on to further noun work. We explore irregular plurals, masculine and feminine, and more.

Further Noun Work

With help from my older daughter, I came up with sets of cards for different types of nouns. If you need to add it to your collection, you can find it in my Teacher’s Pay Teachers shop.

This material features sets of cards for the following types of nouns:

  • Irregular Singular and Plural nouns
  • Common and Proper Nouns
  • Concrete and Abstract Nouns
  • Masculine and Feminine Nouns
  • Plural Noun and Collective Nouns
  • Countable and Uncountable Nouns
  • Simple Nouns: Person, Place, Thing
  • Animals: Animal, male, female, young

All of these materials feature cards to sort into the various categories presented. When applicable, words in each of the categories match one another- something I found lacking in other materials I looked at. For example, when children are practicing common and proper nouns, each common noun has a related proper noun. The common noun, “country,” names a particular country. For the common noun of “city,” a city is named.

I hope this material is useful for your homeschool or classroom experience! If you like it, please leave a review on the product page.

Birds

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As spring is coming ever so slowly, we’re seeing more and more birds around, much to the delight of my toddler. For Christmas, she got a bird feeder and diligently feeds the birds. I keep an eye on it to make sure it’s filled, but most of the time she’s ready to refill it as soon as it gets low!

Supporting this interest in our homeschool room, we have a few shelves of bird activities. Some are old, some are new, and all are loved. From top to bottom, left to right, we have:

My toddler’s favorite activities is matching the bird figures to the cards. Normally, when I do matching activities for toddler and primary aged children, I prefer to make the images match the objects. So when I do a Safari LTD TOOB, I take photos (or find them pre-made) of the TOOB objects. In this case, I used photos of the birds. I went this route because many of the birds we have seen and will continue to see, so there is more real life experience. She can hold a figurine of a Blue Jay, look at a photo, and see them in the yard.

Sibley Flashcards and Matching

We have enjoyed going through the many cards in the flash card box set. The birds are divided into three sets: Western US, Eastern US, and Common to all. Since my children are younger and there are SO many cards, I pulled out the cards for birds we don’t have. Sometimes my children will sit quietly and look at the pictures, which are beautiful and drawings. Sometimes we use them as a resource, either wondering more information about a bird or for identifying new birds we see.

Personally, my favorite is the memory game. My toddler uses this material as a matching activity, which is great. My older daughter likes playing Memory. The cards are thick cardboard with the name and image of the bird. The images match the fact file cards, which is great for when we come across a bird we haven’t actually seen before.

Sibley Memory Game and Sibley Fact Cards

Last, but not least!

Of course, I included the Montessori Parts of a Bird puzzle in the mini bird unit. We have a complete set of parts of animal puzzles, which my kids love. A favorite is the horse puzzle, so this was a good opportunity to remind them about the bird puzzle! Now that it is sitting displayed on the shelf, it is definitely getting more use.

Bird Egg Tonging

The final activity I added to the shelf was bird egg sorting. The eggs are wooden eggs I had. I don’t remember where I got them, but I’m sure you could find them in a craft store. I painted them with acrylic paints, and my daughter loved splattering the black paint to make them look speckled! The little nests, from Amazon, each hold four eggs nicely. The tongs are a bit tricky for my toddler, but it’s great practice for my older daughter.

Side Note: Illustrations versus Photos

Sometimes I see parents questioning whether or not a material is “Montessori” because it uses illustrations rather than photos. This comes from the idea that we want to always show children what is real rather than pretend images. It is an excellent point, but sometimes misguided. In my classroom and in my home, I strive for realistic representation when learning about something. When choosing a book or material, rather than limiting myself to photos, I want to see that images are accurate and beautiful. Sometimes this means photos and sometimes it means illustrations. So, you’ll see we have a mixture of both on our shelves currently.

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