Games! Games! Games!

When I spent some time at our homeschool group's Park Day last week griping about the hard time that Will and I have been having with her schoolwork lately, one of my friends (Hi, Vivian!) suggested games as a way to sneak in the learnin' without the kids noticing.

It was a happy coincidence, then, that the first thing that Willow did on Monday morning, on the first day of our mini Fall Break, was pull out a game to play with me!

Professor Noggin's Pets

And then... another!

Connect Four

And then another!

We played Professor Noggin, Connect Four, and Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? all before 9:00 am (yawn!).

researching what Carmen meant when she said that Ohio's state flag is a burgee

 A break for breakfast, and then another!

Othello is one of my favorites.

 We listened to audiobooks and my Starred songs list on Spotify as we played, sometimes singing along to our favorites--


--and returning, as well, to favorite games:

Willow LOVES Professor Noggin!

While I'm still not sure how to incorporate specific games into our specific fields of study (Anyone know a game that will make learning subtraction with borrowing across zeroes FUN?!?), my friend's suggestion does have me doing some more long-term thinking and planning.

Specifically, here's what I'd like to obtain:

• math games that practice operations and computation
• logic games
• games that reinforce facts about ancient history, especially the material from Story of the World
• geography games that reinforce facts about the United States
• science games related to the study of human biology
• Latin games
• trivia games at a child's level

I'll be on the lookout--and open to suggestions!--for the next two weeks, because a secretly educational but legitimately fun game for each kid would certainly be something nice to have under the Christmas tree!