Learning by playing: experience in homeschooling

Author: Evelina Sproge

We are one of the homeschooling families in Latvia, and playing board games is one of the many ways we learn not only specific knowledge, but also various social skills.

As a child, I myself played more movement games than board games. When going for walks with my mother, I often had to look for something, see something (for example, different figures near one or another building in Old Riga) or predict how many steps there are to the next lantern, and then also check my guess. I continue to play these games with our children as well. From board games, it seems that there was nothing more than " Rich-racha ", " Circus " and chess in my childhood. If only " kegs " or Bingo. At my mother's workplace, I had the opportunity to see how she teaches German to her students with the help of various games.

I am glad that we now have such a large selection of different resources to use when teaching children, including board games . Of course, you can get confused in this abundance.

The biggest benefits

What are the main benefits of playing board games? I really like the idea that you can learn various knowledge, laws and skills through play . Not by specially learning and "forging" the rules in your head, but by learning them in the process of the game and then concluding "oh, I already know that!". Of course, I do not deny that there will be things that will have to be "learned" in life, but why not play a board game as part of your studies, right?

As auxiliary materials in home education, we currently use the memory game with various European flags, the game " Scrabble " (you have to make words from letters), " Rory's Story Cubes " (you have to tell stories). We also really like games that force players to join forces to achieve a common goal , such as Outfoxed (jointly discover which fox has stolen the delicious cake). And with the smallest boy, we have liked this one - " Obstgarten - Das Memo-Spiel " (all players must train their memory to be smarter than a crow). Also on the table are games for learning mathematical expressions - the card games created by our own Latvians " Saskaiti und otėmen!" ", " Play by multiplying! ", " Play by sharing! " and a game similar to " Scrabble " but with math activities, as well as " Game of Trains " (reinforces knowledge of the sequence of numbers - both in ascending and descending order). Oh, there are so many games! Surely every reader can think of others that could be used, both for language learning, for strengthening mathematics knowledge, and for learning natural sciences.

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"Of course, I don't deny that there will be things that need to be "learned" in life, but why not play a board game as part of your studies, right?"

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From skills to traditions

I will mention some skills that playing board games helps to develop :

• develops and improves math and language skills;
• develops skills to solve various problems, devise strategies;
• helps focus attention, concentrate;
• develops the ability to work in a team;
• trains memory;
• develops fine motor skills;
• trains patience;
• develops the ability to control emotions;
• trains the ability to listen to the other;
• teaches to accept loss.

Playing board games together can be a wonderful tradition that helps strengthen family bonds . I know several families for whom game nights are a "sacred thing" and take place regularly - both by themselves and with friends.

Learn to draw!

We recently got acquainted with the game " Sketch fever ". This game evoked all kinds of emotions in our children - from loud cheers and joy for victory to tears for loss .

"Sketch fever " includes drawing and the ability to clearly communicate specific words with the help of a drawing, such as ice, wax, ear, grape, hearing, window. A more difficult level would be to draw the following words: New York, edge, uniform, level, panda, card. Now try to imagine how you could draw these words. The goal is to represent things on the drawing boards in such a way that the other players in the game manage to decipher/recognize them. You could say - similar to the game "The Dumb Show", only with drawing. Everything is complicated by the fact that you have to draw as many words as possible in one minute. But the good news is that if you don't succeed with the first round, there are two more, during which you can improve your drawing or erase it and redraw it.

This game trains our children to be able to quickly turn abstraction into a concrete form and do it as "clearly" as possible . It teaches you to work in conditions of increased stress , because time is limited, and to keep calm even in a situation when it seems that "your mouth is watering". The game teaches to eliminate flaws in drawings, to correct them. And, of course, this game also gives you the opportunity to learn to accept loss, which is not easy.

The main thing is joy and creativity!

There are times when we tend not to stick too strictly to the rules of board games. Also in this game, at least at the beginning, the main thing for us was to enjoy the joy of drawing and try to guess what the other person has drawn instead of counting points.

The youngest child especially liked the boards that you can draw on with a felt-tip pen and then erase everything . Both of these tools can also be used later for other learning purposes. For example, practice writing numbers or letters on blackboards.

This game could be used when talking with a child about the emergence of writing . Once upon a time, people did not write, but used hieroglyphs or pictograms to convey messages to each other. Even today, we use images that represent concepts and that are clear to everyone. For example, drawings on various road signs or marking sports disciplines at the Olympic Games.

Another idea for how you could play this game is you can draw one card with the words on it and agree that everyone will draw one word on their cards and see how many different ways you can represent that word . You can agree on the speed, whether you will draw for one minute (the game also includes an hourglass) or longer. Then compare who managed to convey the message most clearly, who got carried away with unimportant details, and who perhaps misunderstood the meaning of the word in question. This is also an opportunity to learn to speak respectfully about each other's work .

There are 175 cards in the game, each with 6 words to draw. Easier on one side and more difficult on the other. So there are lots of things to draw and opportunities for many nice moments together!