Learn with Board Games You Already Own

It can be fun to introduce learning into a summer day or after-dinner evening with the family during Family Time.  Pull out board games that you’ve played a thousand times and add a learning component to them for a new twist on the game.  A math, literacy, history, or any educational spin can be made to board games to make them appropriate for your child’s age and interests.  See how we’ve made modifications to board games:

 
 
 
Use board games like Guess Who, Kerplunk, Zingo, and more in learning  extension activities: math, literacy, and educational ideas based on your child's interests. Perfect for homeschooling, classroom, and home extension activities.
 


Learn with Board Games

There are so many ways to learn using board games. Occupational therapy providers love to use games and play as a facilitator to supporting skills. Try some of these ideas for example:

Then there are games that use specific items that are found in the home. Using items like game pieces, paper clips, etc. are easy ways to make a DIY game that supports learning. Try these ideas:

This post contains affiliate links.
 
Some of our favorite rainy day activities are board games.  When you play a game 500ish times, they can become boring (Board-ing Games?) and go back on the shelf for months before they are played with again.  We’ve got some ideas for extending the play with your favorite games to make them an appropriate (free) learning tool.
 
 
Use board games like Guess Who, Kerplunk, Zingo, and more in learning  extension activities: math, literacy, and educational ideas based on your child's interests. Perfect for homeschooling, classroom, and home extension activities.
 
Practice Math with Guess Who (affiliate link):
We added a piece of paper to our Guess Who (affiliate link)game.  Write numbers on the paper inside the windows and on the top.  Slide the sheets into both boards.  
Game players can take turns asking questions like, “Is your number 3+3?” or “Is your number 17-4?”.  The first player to determine the other player’s number is the winner.  
Adjust this game to meet any educational needs.  Learning presidents?  Write them in the windows.  Kids can guess the answers based on facts or dates.  
Learning States, science, or historical facts?  Write them in and adjust the game based on the interests and needs of your child or student.
 
Use Practice Sight Words with HedBanz (affiliate link):
Simply write sight words on post it notes and stick them to the headband pieces.  Participants can act out the sight word.  
Other options are molding the sight word out of play dough or drawing the sight word.  This game can easily be adjusted to meet any topic.
 
Practice Math with the game, Zingo (affiliate link):
A fun way to introduce coding to kids is to create simple decoding activities.  
Assign the card pictures from the game, ThinkFun Zingo (affiliate link)
to specific letters.  Players keep the cards that they capture by playing the game with the game boards.  
They then have to use the letters they’ve accumulated to form a word. 
 
Literacy Practice with Ker Plunk Game (affiliate link):
As the marbles drop in the game, say the letters of the alphabet out loud.
It will be tricky to say all of the letters when the marbles fall quickly once the game goes on.
 
Math with Checkers (affiliate link):
We recently posted our favorite way to practice math with checkers.
 
Math with Uno Card Game affiliate link)is played, add the numbers that are played.  Depending on the players ages, you can add just two cards together keep adding.
 
This post is part of our month-long series: Learning with Free Materials series, where we share ideas to learn at home using free (or almost free) materials.  It’s part of the 31 Days of Homeschooling Tips as we blog along with other bloggers with learning at home tips and tools.