Gameschooling – Making Learning Fun

Deciding what school should look like can keep teachers from considering what school can look like. Gameschooling is one of the fun ways that teachers can engage students at home, in a special education class, or even in a mainstream classroom.

Gameschooling is learning by playing games. It can be games you create, existing board games, or premade educational games. Gameschooling is all about learning in fun ways for both teachers and students. When kids enjoy what they learn, they retain the information better.

It has been shown time and again how important it is to include and encourage play in child development. When we discuss using board games to teach kids, we can see that it helps with retention in children and adults.

Gameschooling With Board Games

Gameschooling can happen with board games. There are a couple of ways to do this: either board games that are educational in nature as purchased or take your favorite board games and create educational opportunities.

Doing so will help engage students, increase retention, and create a more pleasant learning experience.

Teach With Educational Board Games

Plenty of board games already exist and incorporate educational standards and teach new concepts. This can be helpful because it keeps kids from falling between the cracks and faking their way through.

Being taught by peers or having a concept explained by different people can positively impact retention and understanding. Sometimes the way information makes sense in our own brains doesn’t make sense for our students. And peer-to-peer teaching has been shown to provide better educational outcomes.

See below for some ideas for educational board games to purchase. Games with a hyperlink will take you to a page on my website with further information, including links to purchase.

Teach With Regular Board Games

Educational board games are amazing, and I love using them.

However, sometimes you have kids who want to avoid learning so much that you need to get more creative.

Or you have a specific resource that needs to be completed, and you don’t have control over that resource, but you are getting resistance to the normal engagement methods.

That is when regular board games come in. Sometimes I’ll even have it as one of the regular options for completing work. The drawback is that it takes longer than just doing the work, but it can mean everything if the students are resistant to even start.

The Method:

Start with your student’s favorite board game, or have a few games for the students to choose from together. Think about Twister for kids that need to move their bodies, choose Chess or a strategic game for a student whose mind needs constant engagement (such as gifted kids), or a fun and familiar one for easy gameplay such as Candyland or Sorry.

Next, ensure the students understand that they will play a game and have fun but still need to do their work.

Start the game and have students answer one question from the worksheet, recite a spelling word, or answer a question orally from the resource. If needed, scribe for the child if they would otherwise not participate. Never allow something such as writing refusal to get in the way of learning a skill only tangentially related.

The idea is that they earn a turn by completing one piece of work, broken down into as small of a section as possible.

You could use worksheets, flashcards, questions at the end of a chapter, or checks to understand something you have read together. You might even have the children take turns reading a section out loud before each turn.

The best thing about this method is how flexible it is. It can be used with almost any game and work that needs to be done.

Gameschooling With Technology

Gameschooling isn’t confined to board games or offline resources. The library of online resources to learn subjects or even assign niche demonstrations online for interactive and fun teaching.

It also has the benefit of engaging kids with technology and can even teach concepts, complete work, or do practice. In this way, it has an advantage over board games.

Parents and teachers may find that they try to avoid these and stick to digital resources that feel very educational. Still, there are so many benefits to using technology for teaching. The biggest advantage, in my view, is to engage students who may struggle physically or socially to remove those barriers and allow them to learn in the way that works for them.

Find Your Gameschooling Resource

Engaging students in learning by using games increases retention in both children and adults. Use the collapsable menu below to find the resources that you need for teaching.

Common Core Standards

Use the links below to jump to the pages with information on each of the Common Core standards and important information related to the standards.