"games" for 1st grader

[greenmamato3]

so often i hear moms say that they spend most of their school day just playing educational games with their kids for school and that the kids don't even realize they are learning.

can i ask a really dumb question?

what games?

i think i "get" how you play games to learn for math and some language arts. although i certainly couldn't fill every day all day with games and no actual working on FLL, WWE, Phonics Pathways, or ETC, etc those don't take that long anyway.
but ....
how do you play games to learn history?
how do you play games to learn biology?

i mean, i understand projects for history and biology. but games? i'm lost!
help!

maybe it's easier just to ask this:
what games would you consider to be "educational" for a first grader?

he also has two youngers ( a 4.5 YO and a 1 YO baby) to contend with: mommy can't JUST focus on him all morning.

thanks for your help!

[Karin]

I'm not one to just play games for learning, however science at this age is just plain fun and like playing.

We did experiments from an Usborne book of experiments. We had lots of trade books on science lying around that my dc love to look at and also to read. When outside, they like to watch insects, arachnids, etc, so it's easy to teach about those & plants in general conversation as they observe and ask questions.

My ds was very much into flight, so we dug much deeper into that field when he was 6 (and 7, 8, 9...). Before 5, it was Physics for him (although flight does involve Physics, and he still finds that fun.) We generally had to turn to middle school materials to satisfy him, and sometimes had to go further. We did do game type things such as blowing across a piece of paper to show how lift works, building paper airplanes (not exactly science in some ways, but it helped his understanding of how wing tips improve lift, and how different wing shapes, etc, work.)

There's also music about science, and probably history somewhere. I know there is geography music, but we don't have it. We have some on science, math facts, grammar, states & capitols, things like that.

My kids just weren't interested in history at 6 and I didn't push it. I'm glad I didn't, because it would have turned my 9 yo off. He thought all history was boring then. I waited and now he really enjoys it. Not that I'd do that with all subjects, of course, but I thought history could wait.

[JennW in SoCal]

Since I've been one to say we played games when my kids were little, I felt I should answer your post.

To me, the early years are about the joy of learning. We spent time on skills each day -- math, reading (early readers and phonics) and handwriting (workbooks and copy work) -- but otherwise we just focused on enjoying life and discovering the world around us. Many of the programs used today weren't available when I was starting out homeschooling, so perhaps it was easier to just trust in learning through fun and games and what was available around the house and at the library.

Favorite games here included Rummy Roots which is a card game of Latin and Greek root words, Mad Libs, the Allowance Game, map jigsaw puzzles, travel the world games, SET and Rush Hour. My kids enjoyed the Highlights series Which Way USA and the countries of the world version which I can't think of as they were puzzle books of clues to learn about different places in the world. There was a sentence puzzle put out by DK that my 1st grader loved, they used pattern blocks and tangrams for hours.

I didn't feel that my kids needed formal science or history until they were much older, so we simply read stacks of picture books on what interested them, went to the zoo and to area museums of all kinds -- natural history, science, airplane, art, or whatever else looked interesting. Like Karin we did lots of fun science projects, did many craft projects most of which I didn't direct but instead let my kids let lose with their own creative ideas.

There are some great games out there. Look at the Chinaberry catalog, for instance for some great ones. But you don't have to think everyone literally mean they only use games. It really is more a description, I would think, of not depending on books and curricula for home education.

[greenmamato3]

Favorite games here included Rummy Roots which is a card game of Latin and Greek root words, Mad Libs, the Allowance Game, map jigsaw puzzles, travel the world games, SET and Rush Hour. My kids enjoyed the Highlights series Which Way USA and the countries of the world version which I can't think of as they were puzzle books of clues to learn about different places in the world. There was a sentence puzzle put out by DK that my 1st grader loved, they used pattern blocks and tangrams for hours.

I didn't feel that my kids needed formal science or history until they were much older, so we simply read stacks of picture books on what interested them, went to the zoo and to area museums of all kinds -- natural history, science, airplane, art, or whatever else looked interesting. Like Karin we did lots of fun science projects, did many craft projects most of which I didn't direct but instead let my kids let lose with their own creative ideas.

There are some great games out there. Look at the Chinaberry catalog, for instance for some great ones. But you don't have to think everyone literally mean they only use games. It really is more a description, I would think, of not depending on books and curricula for home education.

so, here's what i'm doing generally with the history and science stuff, mostly b/c my child loves history and has always enjoyed learning about animals and plants. this year, i chose to do Carmen's Ancient Explorations for history (though admittedly we're not getting to everything), and i chose to use Paige's Elemental Science Biology for the Grammar Stage. We're only 2 weeks into the latter. I try to make sure we can get out for a nature walk of some sort every week {during which i make sure i'm not talking to a friend on the telephone and during which i make sure i am tuned in to something around us that i can grab their attention with if they get sidetracked with the monotony of just going around the block}. ideally we'd get to a different park or preserve each week in addition to our regular "walks" around the neighborhood and their daily play outside {which is unstructured and mostly involves riding bikes!}. sometimes that just doesn't happen due to weather or the youngers, or just sheer life.

mainly, i'm trying to do the projects and such that those two curriculas encourage, though sometimes it just doesn't seem like a good fit and i either skip it or find something simpler/more meaningful for my specific kiddos.

we spend LOTS of time reading living books in both of those subjects, and i try to have them "do" a narration page in a casual way a few times each week for the history stuff. we're timelining, etc ... very lowkey. we're studying maps based on what comes up in our history and what might come up in our conversations, etc.

is that too monotonous? i don't want to look back on these years and think, "gee, that was a boring way to do that. why didn't i _____?" but i just plum can't think of what else to do other than projects (which are *not* my strong suit though i am really trying to grow in this area b/c i see how much the kids learn when we do do something, even as simple as dressing like a mesopotamian or something like that ....).

when you say to that "playing games" means you're not depending on books and curricula, do you mean like workbooks or like living books? he barely does any workbooks .... just ETC .... and with our rightstart there are lots of card games we play and manipulatives. plus he spends one day a week at a very lowkey tutorial that's basically just social and play time from 9-3 so i that's an entire day of not really having school ....

does this sound unbalanced? we spend from about 8:30-10 getting our math, language arts, and one other thing done {it takes that long b/c of distractions from youngers or bathroom breaks or what not}. then after a snack, from about 10:30 - 12:00, we have time reading living books for history, bible stories, biology topics, poetry, and/or literature (or some combo thereof, certainly not all everyday). i might throw a narration page in there to keep in our notebook, or they might be coloring during part of it, or mapping time, etc. or we might do a nature walk instead .... or maybe we do a history-related project.... there are certainly plenty of distractions of "sibling-ness" abounding during that time b.c our middle child doesn't sit still and listen very well yet .... so it slows down the pace b/c i have to stop a lot. :tongue_smilie:

afternoons are for the most part unstructured with at least an
hour reserved for quiet-room-rest time. sometimes we do our projects in the afternoons ..... kind of depends on the baby's naps. i have a lot of trouble focusing on the kids for reading time while he's with us b/c he's just not a quiet kid :)

wow. this turned into a long post. at the risk of being really narsicisstic (which i can't spell at all!), can you help me understand how i could add in the concept of "games" in this, or am i already doing that ok? i just don't know where the balance is. DS and DD seem to be doing well in our current system .... but i want them to really love and crave learning .... and to invest LONG TERM into a system that works well. :)

[Bird Girl]

That sounds about like what we are doing; an hour and a half or so of skills-based stuff, and then an hour and a half of content work in the disciplines. I can't speak to the "games" question--I find that so-called "discovery-based" methods don't work and are a huge amount of work for me with very little payoff for DD.

[Truscifi]

We spend 2-3 hours in the morning doing regular school, but we also play tons of games in the afternoon/evening. We play the spelling bee game, where we take turns asking each other to spell words (started that one after the Scripps National Spelling Bee). We play math war, which is a card game. We play the 'animal game' or the 'human body game' which is a version of 20 questions where you pick either an animal or a body part and the other person has to ask questions to figure out what it is. I think ds learns at least as much from the games as he does in school. ;)

[Jill]

How much you think games help with history might depend on outlook.
Sid Meiers' Civilization is a computer game where you build your civilization from 4000 B.C. up to comtemporary times roughly. You pick which civilization and leader you wish to be. You have to deal with selecting what technologies and cultural advances you work on, when you switch to different government models, etc... You can play with a very cooperative peaceful strategy and see what happens or a more aggressive strategy and see what havoc you create! There is a Sid Meiers Colonization game that runs on the same game model but is specifically about the American Colonies (choose New World or the Caribbean.) I think my son has learned a lot from those games and his eyes light up in recognition of the leaders' names and the wonders that are built (Colosseum, Ziggurat, the APollo Program) as we also read The Story of the World and do those activities, maps and tests. But not everyone is as into computer games or use as we are...

Here's quite a long list of History tagged board games but how age appropriate they are I don't know.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeksearch.php?action=search&objecttype=boardgame&q=history

There are many geography based games to play. We like Take Off and Ticket to Ride and there are many more.

"...next month marks the launch of the first U.S. public school curriculum based entirely on game-inspired learning. Select sixth graders can look forward to playing video games such as "Little Big Planet" and "Civilization," as well as non-digital games ranging from role-playing scenarios to board games and card games." There are also projects they will build and testing they'll have to do.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/first-public-school-based-games-set-nyc-debut

[Truscifi]

Dh and I both play Civ, and ds has 'helped' - and just from that he learned about the 7 Wonders and many leaders of different cultures throughout history. When he gets a bit bigger we'll let him start playing to work on strategy skills. We'll play Risk with him too.