December 6, 2023 – Homeschooling Through the Holidays with Games

Stacy Farrell

HomeschoolAdventure.com

Confessions of a Non-Gamer

Permission to speak freely? Although I recognize and appreciate the myriad benefits of playing games with my children, I’m not really a “game person.” Back in our homeschooling days, I enjoyed a few family game nights, but more often you’d find me cleaning up the kitchen or working on some task while my husband and sons played together. Those days passed so quickly . . .

Family Game Night Recommendations

Even as a non-gamer, I have a few family favorites to share with you—along with suggestions on how to exploit their educational value:

Monopoly can teach your children about money management, strategic planning, and the basics of property investment. Every purchase or trade can become a mini-economics lesson.

Uno and Yahtzee can help children practice quick math skills. Uno can turn a simple card game into a lesson in probability and decision-making. Yahtzee helps kids improve their addition as they calculate scores.

Battleship can develop critical thinking and strategy (along with teaching coordinate systems which are foundational in geometry). Discuss the logic behind the guesses and the spatial reasoning involved as each player plots their hits and misses.

Sorry can teach kids more than mere sliding and bumping opponents back to start. Each move is a chance to predict outcomes and make decisions based on the likely rolls of opponents.

Pictionary can enhance creative thinking, communication skills, and quick problem-solving.

Scrabble can be the quintessential game to expand vocabulary. Challenge your children to use new words they’ve learned during homeschool lessons, and discuss the meanings and origins of each word they place.

Character-Building Games & Activities

If you’re looking for games and activities that combine fun and character training, checkout these posts:

• 21 Fun Activities to Teach Your Children Good Manners
• Activities to Teach Listening Skills: Engaging Strategies for All Ages
• 25 Activities & Ideas to Teach Kids Kindness

Speaking as a homeschool mom whose sons are now grown men, even if you’re a non-gamer like me, I urge you to make time to play with your children. Truly, in just a blink, this homeschooling season will be over.

Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

His love,
Stacy

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About the author

Surprised by Jesus, Stacy went from an unmarried, childless, thirty-something career woman to a Christ-following wife of more than twenty-eight years with two sons she homeschooled K-12. She battled fear and overwhelm, but survived and thrived. Author of more than fifteen books—including the award-winning Philosophy Adventure and newly released Food Prep Guide, she loves to equip and encourage homeschool families. Visit her at HomeschoolAdventure.com or at her newly-launched site: FoodPrepGuide.com.

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Todd Wilson

Familyman Ministries

To Bethlehem

Hey Mom,

Let me just say up front . . . I’m not a game player. My mom hates it when I say that, but I was more of a TV kid. With TV you didn’t have to . . . think. I figured there was a reason they called board games . . . bored!

So, it makes perfect sense that I invented the greatest Christmas game of all time–To Bethlehem!!

Honestly, I didn’t plan on being a game maker but I love Christmas and family, and I knew games create unforgettable family times. So, I took a big piece of cardboard, drew out an idea, cut out some paper shekels and some question cards, and my family loved it (including me). We had such a good time, I wondered if others would want to add it to their Christmas traditions (there are no real Christmas games out there). So, we found a maker, worked out the kinks, and now each fall my family assembles, shrink wraps, and ships out To Bethlehem all over the country.

And here’s the deal: my family still loves to play it every year. In fact, I’ve played it so many times I drag my feet when it actually comes time to play it. But every time we do, we all laugh, sing loud, act silly, argue over the rules, and create never-to-be-forgotten memories.

Any Christmas game that can do that is worth the price of admission to me!

And one more thing you should know: each year we play the game we write the name of the winner on the back of the board in white paint marker. Last year, Ike (24) was thrilled to make the board. It has become our little Christmas history of family fun. Years from now when I’m no longer able to play it, or gone, they’ll get out the old Christmas board game and laugh, argue, and remember a Father who sent His Son to save the world and a dad who loved his family so much that he played a silly Christmas board game.

And the best part is, you can order it today to have it in plenty of time to enjoy it this Christmas.

Be real and get the game,
Todd

About the author

Todd Wilson is a husband, dad, grandpa, writer, homeschool conference speaker, and former pastor. Todd’s humor and down to earth realness have made him a favorite speaker all across the country and a guest on Focus on the Family. As founder of The Familyman and The Smiling Homeschooler, his passion and mission are to remind moms and dads of what’s most important through weekly emails, podcasts, seminars, and books that encourage parents. Todd, and his wife Debbie, homeschool four of their eight children (the other four are homeschool graduates) in northern Indiana and travel America in the Familyman Mobile. You can read more at www.familymanweb.com.

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Heidi Mosher

Games, Grins, and Gifts

“Be serious; we’re playing a game!” That was the funniest thing I remember my sweet Grandpa saying. His uncharacteristic reprimand was directed at a group of us silly young cousins during a card game called King’s Corners that we were enjoying with him and Grandma. We children were likely enjoying ourselves a little too much. To me, a game was all about good times! To Grandpa, maybe it was about teaching us youngsters strategy—or even respect. To all of us, a game meant spending time together. What fun! We cousins played wild rounds of Spoons every New Year’s Eve too, and we mastered Bop It between bites of homemade fudge one Christmas. 

Mom played Peanuts or Rummikub or Life with her five children on Sunday afternoons. Dad joined in if we played Aggravation, his favorite board game. My big brother played rounds and rounds of Stratego with me. Somehow, he always won. (I suspect he cheated now and then, but he grew up to be a pastor, so I’m happy to report he turned out well regardless of his childhood tricks.) 

Memories of the games we played as children, and those we played the games with, bring a grin, don’t they?  

I wanted to give my kids grins and childhood memories of our own little family playing games. Most Christmases, I wrapped up a new game that we could enjoy as a family, and then we’d spend hours during Christmas break playing it together. The games grew up with our kids: Hi Ho! Cherry-O, Chutes and Ladders, Rack-O, Uno, Simon, Othello, Monopoly, Clue, and Lego’s Creationary and Robo Champ. With our teens, we laughed over Game of Things and added in ping pong and pool and an indoor basketball arcade game that was an incredible deal at Costco one year. If I could start my homeschooling years over, I’d have let the kids unwrap those games early in the holiday season instead of waiting for Christmas Eve. I’d have cut out a few of the holiday pressures somehow. Maybe I’d say, “Let’s not be so serious about school this December. We have games to play!” Then we’d grin and relax and make more memories.  

Wouldn’t that be a gift?

About the author

Heidi Mosher is hoping for a few rounds of Code Names when her two young adults make their way home to Michigan to join the rest of the family for Christmas this year. She’s also hoping the puppy and the Christmas tree can get along. 

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Pillar of Faith

Heather Vogler

It is Worth the Struggle

My kids were shocked on Thanksgiving when they were able to sit down with kids their own age and make it through an entire game without the other participants walking away mid-game. It made their day!

My kids are often frustrated with the short attention spans of their peers. It is not that my kids do not watch TV or play video games—their screen time is simply limited. Other options are offered each day—including board and card games. Game playing has been integrated into their routine so much that they are drawn to it while with siblings and friends.

For some of their peers, it is just not on their radar, which is not necessarily their fault. They have not been conditioned this way. When my kids do find like-minded folks, they connect. Seeing my younger children on the living room floor playing an intense board game with fellow elementary-aged kids and the teens in another room engaged for hours with a more involved board game that includes strategy and smarts this past Thanksgiving made me smile. It also made me thankful. Thankful for the struggles in the early years when I pushed through and encouraged them to play games even if some discipline happened when a sore loser threw the game pieces throughout the house.

Now that Christmas is on the horizon, I am setting aside games to have on hand for those days when school simply will not happen. My kids are learning life skills through these games, and I am already seeing the fruit in the lives of my teens. They can see a task through to completion, are able to work well with others, and live life creatively. Though it may seem like a cop-out to swap out curriculum for games this December, or it may seem stressful to police younger children with something new and different, in the end it is so worth it!

About the author

Heather, her husband, and five kids homeschool and homestead in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In addition to writing on her blog, Thrift Schooling (ThriftSchooling.com), Heather has been published in several publications including Focus on the Family Magazine, War Cry Magazine, and Brio Magazine. Heather holds a BA in Christian ministries and currently works in the marketing department of The Old Schoolhouse®.

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