Great Games for Homeschoolers

Here are some of my family’s favorite games. See which ones you already have and also hopefully I’ll give you some new suggestions. I’ve also made some suggestions on ways the games can be used for educational purposes. If your family has a favorite game that you think other homeschool families would enjoy that isn’t listed here, add your suggestions in the comments section below!

Monopoly
I’m sure everyone has heard of this family favorite. Monopoly is a terrific game for teaching math skills, taking turns, dealing with stocks and money, buying and selling, and money-related terminology such as stocks, bonds, bank, bankrupt, and mortgage. We love to play Monopoly when time isn’t a factor and we can just sit around for hours and have fun.

Life
I remember playing Life when I was a young girl. I LOVED getting as many children as I could. I would will up my car and then if anyone else didn’t want their children, I would pile their kids in my car as well. The cars seat 6 people - 2 adults and 4 children. I would always put the mom in the driver seat, dad in the passenger seat, then I’d end up with about 8 children in the back. They don’t have seatbelts for Life so inevitably my little plastic children would fall across the board each time I moved my vehicle.

Anyway, this is another great game to practice using math skills. You also have the opportunity to bring up discussions about goals, family, occupations, and how choices affect your real life. Like many of these great board games, let even your youngest family members roll their own dice or (in the case of Life), spin the spinner themselves, count their spaces, etc.

Dutch Blitz
Some friends of ours introduced us to this card game a few years ago. It’s a terrific game, although I’ve come away from many games with scrapes and scratches across my hands. (My friend Steven and I have a lot in common, including our desire to win!) It’s a difficult game to describe in writing, but basically your goal is to get as many cards as possible before everyone else gets them. The game is multi-tasking to the extreme and teens/preteens seem to particularly enjoy it.

Cranium
This is a hands-on, fun-filled, intellectually stimulating game for older children and adults. It’s meant for ages 12 and up, but we’ve played it with our middle children as well. It’s loads of fun and requires you to use many different skills to create clay sculptures, decide whether a statement is true or false, answer a trivia question, act out a clue, sketch a clue, imitate a famous person, etc.

Hullabaloo
This fun action game is meant for younger players. Our children have most enjoyed this game between ages four and ten, but older children enjoy playing sometimes, too. Players have to wiggle, dance, hop, step, etc. to a colored pad. Players can share pads and while they are learning to share, there is also an element of cooperative play. Colors, shapes, and names of animals, foods, and musical instruments are reinforced during this action-filled game.

Clue
Children learn to use skills of discernment while trying to figure out who murdered whom with what weapon. Reading and writing skills are also used in Clue. This was another one of my favorite games when I was a child and my own children enjoy it now.

Whoonu
Another excellent game from the Cranium family, this is an great ice-breaker game for young people. It encourages people to talk about what they like or don’t like and you find out things about other people that you may not have known. This game is fun whether you’re six, sixteen or sixty. It encourages reading skills and organization skills. It also includes chips that you have to count at the end of each turn, requiring a minimal amount of math.

Scrabble
Even my youngest children enjoy playing Scrabble! Everyone knows you can learn vocabulary by playing this game, but did you know that you can also change the rules and allow dictionary use to encourage spelling skills, vocabulary skills, and reference skills? We also allow foreign words when we play so that also reinforces any foreign language vocabulary that your child may be learning.

Othello
I’ve never actually played this particular game, but my husband plays it with our children all the time and they love it. I do know it is a strategy game and also encourages math skills. It reminds me of a precursor to chess or something like that, but my children just love it.

Upwards
This is another terrific spelling game. Even young spellers can play this fun family game.

Yahtzee
This is a good game to help players practice fine motor skills (repeatedly using the dice in different combinations), count, and use math strategy.

That’s all I can think of at the moment, but if I think of more, I’ll add them. There are still many fabulous toys and other activities on the market that do not require batteries or an electric plug. If your children are stuck on electronic games, take them away for a week and play a board game with them!

Sonya Haskins