Play Games!

By Beverly Williams

Want your children to enjoy “school” more?  Want to bond as a family better?  Want to avoid tears when your child hits a concept s/he can’t understand?  Play games!
 
I’m Beverly Williams, the Brainiac Baroness, also known as the Math Games Mom.  As a homeschooling mother of four, birth to the end of high school, with two of them struggling learners, my husband and I have played a lot of games, math and otherwise, with our children. 
 
I developed the Math Games curriculum to give my extremely intuitive (read, “no logic”) daughter* success when she hit an arithmetic wall.  Generally, the game would not address the wall at all, but review fundamentals or reinforce logic flow.  In this way, the game made it clear to her that she was good at math and gave her brain a break, which allowed some time for her brain to develop to understand the new concept.  This is to say, we often played a variety of games for several weeks before getting back to the problem concept. 
 

​Did I hear a gasp?  Yes, that’s correct:  we would sometimes abandon a subject or two of our curriculum for weeks, sometimes months, at a time to build confidence and give time for our children’s brain to catch up. 
 
Other reasons to play games:

• It’s fun!
• It’s good for your children to see you thinking and strategizing and maybe even losing!
• It’s good for your children to learn to win and lose gracefully.
• It builds good relationships within the family and often allows for conversation that wouldn’t otherwise occur.

As Nancy Lauser said in her blog about Public Speaking, games are great to play when you have an unavoidable wait.  Her games are good ones and we have played variants of them with our children.  

While I have invented games that I made at home with inexpensive materials (or no materials), I generally use those that you can buy inexpensively.  Some good ones for math:

• Cribbage
  • deck of cards and
  • for keeping score use math manipulatives if your child needs help counting or pencil and paper or a cribbage board
  • this is a great game for life:  a good tool for teaching quick adding and fun to play until God calls you home!
• Racko
• Pass the Pigs
  • warning:  very addictive!
  • Let your children keep score with math manipulatives or with pencil and paper making tally marks
• Slide 5
• No, Thanks

None of the above games have actual equations in them.  I own those, too, but remember you want your children to want to play.  Also, remember that laughter and fun make learning easier.
 
Logic games, solo:

• Go Getter 1, 2, 3
• A-maze!
• Rush Hour and Rush Hour Junior
• Hop it!
• Set (usually playing with many, but can be played solitaire)
• Pattern shapes, preferably magnetic (generally based on hexagons)
• Fractiles (magnetic pattern shapes based on heptagons)
• Any type of marble run
• Tantrix

Logic games for two:

• Gobblet Junior and Gobblet
• Tic Tac Two!
• Carcassonne
• Checkers
• Chess
• Set

Logic games for three or more:

• Blockus
• Set
• Otrio
• Rumikub
• Ticket to Ride
• Qwirkle
• Tsuro

Word Games:

• Take Two--
  • Like Bananagrams, only uses the tiles from Scrabble, so the letter distribution is better
  • Rules are similar to Bananagrams:  you make your own legitimate crossword and say “Take two!” when you have and you and all playing have to take two more tiles to fit in their own crossword
  • You decide whether you will allow tile trades with the pile or others
  • We’ve played with our children just learning to read and spell and allowed them to make individual words (helping them), and not crosswords and allowing them to say “Take two!” when they have made any word.  We played by the other rules while they played by these rules and eventually they grew into the more sophisticated rules.
  • Legitimate is how you define it.  We use Scrabble rules, so no proper nouns, but play it the way YOU want.
• Scrabble
  • for older children, or younger with help, perhaps on teams
  • tends to be boring unless you use a timer
  • would highly recommend using a dictionary, such as the Scrabble Dictionary, to help kids with spelling and definitions
• Word Trio (Discovery Toys)
• Catch Phrase

Games that use multiple disciplines:

• Ziggity
• Cranium
• Chrononauts

Games for fun:

• Uno (does teach number and color recognition)
• Dohdles!  (this game is the new hit with my family of adult children and we have played it successfully with kids as young as 4, with assistance reading where needed)

 
Remember that laughter and fun make learning easier.  I have a games library where you can browse for free.  If your kids are present, I can teach you to play a game so you can see if you want to purchase it. 

Make a weekly, biweekly, or monthly family games night if you don’t want to incorporate games into your school.
 
*Said daughter now has her master’s degree and is working as a technical writer for GoDaddy in Seattle.

Beverly Williams

Beverly Williams, the "Brainiac Baroness", has over 20 years teaching experience teaching in groups of children in homeschooling coops.  As a trained violinist and active choral singer (currently in the New Mexico Symphonic Chorus), she has taught many music literacy classes to multiple age groups.  All her four adult children, who were all homeschooled through high school, are actively involved in music.  One currently plays electric violin in a rock band and graduated this year from the Juilliard School of Music with a degree in cello performance and is completing his first year of his Master’s degree at USC.  Her Mechanical Engineering background makes her uniquely qualified to teach math and science.  She has just completed teaching groups of homeschoolers Apologia Biology Lab class to high schoolers, Apologia General Science Lab class to middle schoolers as well as a Apologia Physical Science Lab class to 8-10th graders.  Additionally, she taught multiple math games classes using her own curriculum to K-4 students and is currently teaching violin.