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What benefit is there to playing a game to learn a skill? It's fun. It's competitive. It uses different skills. It teaches us how to win and lose. It allows for creativity.

"Sammy it's time for math. Come here and let's do this work sheet?"

"Sammy, would you like to play a game with me?"

Which one is more likely to get Sammy headed over to the table with you? Nine times out of ten it will be the game. Games are a great tool for school. You can use many games you already may have tucked away in the closet and there are thousands of variations you can make.

There are essentially no limits to the numbers and kinds of games you can use in a homeschooling environment. Give me a game and I will find a way to make it work.

Does anyone remember Jenga? This was a great way for us to learn about physics, statistics and engineering. We played Jenga. We took pictures and loaded them on the computer and had a huge fun project. It all began with the game. Bryan loved the physical aspect of touching the blocks with his hands because he is very much a kinetic learner.

Hyper-slide was a fairly big game around Christmas in our area this year. It is simply based on following directions and memory. You can play it alone or with others. If you only learned those two things it would still be worth it to have my husband play with my kids every day. You can also enlarge the experience to other concepts.

The kids are outside climbing the tree. Take a picture. Figure out angles and analyze which direction they may have fallen. Use that same picture as a story starter. You write a story and heave each child write a story. See how different they can be from one picture. Have them drop ping pong balls for the tree and counts how many times they bounce. Let your imagination run wild.

You guys are jumping rope for your physical education requirements. Why not recite your times tables or you spelling words and multitask your curriculum.

Concentration works with any subject and any age.

Hand your child a game and say what can you teach me with this game.

Now, these games all need to be tied back to school work. You simply show them how the two relate and how they can put what they learn on paper. They are going to need to succeed in both realms if they are considered college in the future.

This is another example of where networking is a great thing. You can join another family in a game and have some fun. This encourages social skills and the "teachers" can talk about how to relate this to other studies.

Run to your discount store and buy some essentials. Dice, blocks, and cards are a good start. Clean out your game closet and see what educational treasures you have. With games everybody learns to win and lose.

Learn more about this author, Trenna Sue Hiler.
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