Using Games in Your Homeschool

At the beginning of this year we completed a Geology Unit Study together. All of the kids learned so much during this fun unit. We didn’t really use a textbook and do review questions and vocabulary quizzes like traditional schooling. Instead we read a bunch of books from the library and found some documentaries to watch. We also did some fun science experiments and activities. For our written work, they put what was learned into a lapbook and then for our final test we played our homemade version of Jeopardy. 

We have played quiz show games a few times and really I need to make sure we play them more often. I have done 3x5s taped onto the white board for the quiz board in the past but this time I decided to make our game as a Power Point presentation and put it up on the TV. If you can connect your computer to your TV, it makes for some fun learning times, like full screen YouTube videos instead of crowding around the computer. I scoured the internet and found a template for Jeopardy and then modified that template to work for what we needed. It worked out great and the kids had a blast. What is even better is that they all learned a lot from our unit and instead of their test at the end being something to dread, they enjoyed it. Even Little G surprised me with how much she remembered. And what they didn’t remember they were able to learn from the others answering which reinforces the information that much more. I have an advantage having more than one or two kids for this. But if you are creative, you can make it work for just one kid too. Be creative and come up with different games to test and review the information like Hangman, Pictionary, Wheel of Fortune or even Are You Smarter Than… . You don’t have to use a computer to play either. I have used 3x5s and the whiteboard for games more times than I can count.

Jeopardy Final Exam

 Another cool thing to note, just the other night while watching TV, Miss H made a connection from what we learned a couple months ago to what she saw. Making up fun games and trying to keep the learning fun, helps them remember what they learn much more than reading a text and regurgitating the answers onto paper.