Learning with Family Games

Some of our favorite family games:

• Scrabble - Scrabble is long division practice: first you multiply, then you add. Striving to work the numbers over in our heads to figure out what we need to roll to win is the big contest here.
• Boggle - This is the favorite at our house. It's the game that never really gets put away, because someone is almost always playing it. My almost-6 yr-old learns to create words on his own, and my 10 and 12 yr-olds learn obscure new three letter words.
• Monopoly - This is a tradition in my husband's family, complete with tales and legends from childhood! We recently discovered Monopoly Mega, which is way more interesting to me than the original. Strategy, math, and patience all can be learned from Monopoly.
• Apples to Apples - We usually play the Bible edition, as the kiddos know more of the cards. We also really like to play it as Crab Apples (look at your directions for alternate ways to play the game.) This game seems like the perfect way to begin teaching analogies.
• Cranium Whoonu - This teaches us to think about what other people prefer. As an added bonus, you will learn things about your kiddos that you did not know.
• Cranium Family Game - This game teaches concentration and how to work together to achieve a goal (even if it is balancing cubes on your nose!)
• Cranium Super Showdown (there's a trend here, huh?) - This game twists your brain into knots! It teaches debate skills and brainstorming.
• Cranium Doodle Tales - This game is especially enjoyable if you have funny family members. It's part art and part writing and a little bit of pre-journalism.
• Scrabble - This is the original language arts educational game. It is great for finding spelling problems, too.
• Blokus, Goblet, Chess, Chinese Checkers, Mastermind, etc. - These all fall into the strategy category. Some games of the same sort for one player would include Rush Hour and River Crossing.