[gerberadaisy]

Originally Posted by kiloyd

I think this is easy and doable for young children. My son is 5 and we play games to learn numbers and letters. Sorry, SkipBo, and Discovery Toys ABSeas for letters.

Spot It is good for prereading skills.

(by the way, why does everything have to have a label? "gameschooling"? Thought it was just playing with your kids. )

For me: We play games all the time with our son. I think I needed something to legitimize it as a way to educate him. I'm somewhat of a legalist & rule follower & a "school at home" kind of mama. I want to break out of it but not sure how. If there wasn't a label, I never would have explored this as an option other than as a day away from "doing school".

For my son: He just gets excited that I'm not going to make him do art or geography or copywork, etc. when I announce we're going to "gameschool".

For my husband: He supports homeschooling but expects it to look like school. This year he's questioned whether we were doing school consistently enough. If we spent the day playing games, he'd probably question that a bit.I could explain it all I want but he accepts it better if there is some "legitimacy" - such as a title/label - for it. As he doesn't generally question much about my methods & I know he prefers a "school at home" method (though he won't prevent me from doing it how I want), I call it what it is. Ultimately, other than the state & my son, he's the only other person I have to answer to in regards to my sons education.

---------- Post added at 11:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Maleldil's daughter

We love love love board games in our family. Lots of the ones we have and love have been mentioned, but I didn't yet see:

Blokus
Ingenious
Pizza Theory

Those are all good for math-related skills. Also, most games designed by Reiner Knizia have math elements (he's a famous game designer with a background in math).

The 10 Days in series (10 Days in Africa, Asia, etc) would be good for geography. The Ticket to Ride games too.

If he still likes board games when he gets older there are soooo many awesome history-based games (my dh is an avid war gamer so I know there's so much out there). Some of my personal favorites are History of the World, Civilizations, St. Petersburg, Shogun, and Commissioned (game about early church history - love it). For those of you with high schoolers we also have two science-y games, Compounded and Defenders of Soma.

We have & love blokus. He beats us almost every time! I haven't heard of any of the others but will check into them.

---------- Post added at 11:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

We have Sequence Numbers which is fun a few times but not a whole lot of replay value, IMO.

There's Sequence States but we don't have that.

---------- Post added at 12:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 PM ----------

Forbidden Island is another favorite around here.

Minecraft card game is fun for younger kids but my 9 year-old finds it boring (so do I). You don't have to be familiar with the video game to play the card game.

I'm trying to keep him as far away from minecraft as I possibly can for as long as I can I think it may be a losing battle as he already asks about it.
I'll look into the others.