School is not the only place where kids can learn something. Yes, school is an institution for learning activities. But when your kid is at home, you are his/her teacher. And at home, you can make learning fun. You don’t have to make everything feel like a classroom lesson. How to do that? Well, start by using educational games for kids.
With these games, you can get your kids excited and engaged about discovering something new. These learning games for kids make a great alternative for young children and older children. You don’t have to learn everything through a pencil and paper institution. Why not schedule a family game night?
Nowadays, with the rise of technology, educational apps and educational online games are everywhere. But we will stick to some old-school classics. Here we go.
1. Tail Total
Do you want to make calculus fun? Math is rarely a favorite subject among kids. But that is because few parents try to make it fun. With this educational game, you can definitely find a fun way to do calculus.
How to play? Well, the goal of this math game is to calculate how many stories high your family is. Simply add everyone’s height, going all the way to grandparents and cousins. The game will definitely improve your kids’ math skills.
Calculate how tall your family building would be. Ten feet for each floor.
2. I Spy
This is a great learning game for new words, new subjects, and more. Or learn more about a subject or element. You can play it anywhere.
How to do it? Just define the category and rules first. For example, you can look only for blue items. And then go “I Spy something on the shelf.” Or anything you like. The options are limitless.
3. Word Detective
Young kids can learn so many new words. They are like a sponge. And reading stories is not the only way for kids to learn new words.
For this learning activity, you can find a common word. For example, the word “you.” Then, as you read the book and turn the pages, ask your kid to find the word on the page. Give hints like “I see the word four times.”
4. Sign Scramble
Scramble is one of the most popular games. It is a great game for learning new words. But here we do a different thing. The premise is the same, but we use letters from a sign.
As you walk with your kids, ask them to make as many words as they can from the letters in a sign.
5. Vocab Clues
Here is a fun game of thesaurus for you. Pick any word, and ask your child to think of other words that mean the same thing. For example, happy – cheerful – glad. Or you can make the game more challenging, and ask your kid to come up with a word that has the opposite meaning.
6. Printable Escape Rooms
Here is an idea that is growing in popularity. Escape room games can be used for learning a ton of things. Some schools even incorporate them into the curriculum. For example, if you are learning a history lesson, you can find a game from that period and play it.
Nowadays, you don’t have to look through your city to find an escape room. You can simply download an escape room printable kit and set up the game in your home. Neat, right?
Our ready-to-play game kits
Professor Swen’s Lab
Houdini’s Secret Room
Wooka Booka Island
The Gilded Carcanet
7. Hangman
This traditional interactive game improves your kids’ spelling and vocabulary. It is an enjoyable game. And all you need for playing is a whiteboard and pen or interactive whiteboard.
You draw spaces on the whiteboard to represent each letter in the word. Then, your kid tries to guess the word, one letter at a time. For every incorrect answer, you draw a line of a hangman.
And you don’t have to use a hangman for this. You can draw any other image.
8. Charades
Speaking of educational games for kids that help you learn new words, we have to mention Charades. It is a classic game but it gets the job done. The simple game is a great way to encourage your children to participate in a lesson.
And similar to escape room games, you can modify charades to your current theme. For example, let’s say you have a lesson about animals in a household. There you go — you have the charades category chosen for you.
9. Bingo
Bingo is a quick and simple fun game that never fails to motivate kids about learning. This is one of those games where you need only a whiteboard, pen and paper, or pencils. The most important part is a list of subject-specific terms.
Draw a 6 x 6 grid on whiteboards and then select 6 words or images from the given list. Randomly select a word from the list to describe, and your child has to guess the word in order to cross it off on the grid.
10. Puzzles
You can never go wrong with a good old puzzle game. It is a creative game that encourages kids to work together. It helps with their fine motor skills, but also their problem-solving skills. But most importantly, puzzles teaches kids to work together as a team.
11. Blindfold Artist
The goal of this game is to engage your child’s imagination and ability to describe things. Work in pairs, but you should not see each other.
If you have two kids, you can be their mentor and let them play. Give one child a picture or an image. That child describes the picture, and his/her partner has to recreate it by only listening to the description. The idea is to see how accurate a drawing your kids can make.
12. Pictionary
Here is another old classic game that is great to motivate kids to visualize their understanding. It is similar to the Blind Artist we talked about before.
You can write ideas on a piece of paper and put them in a bowl. One player picks up a subject and has up to two minutes to draw the subject. The rest of the group has to guess what the player is drawing.
Jumping the Line
This is an energy game you can use to play at the end of the day and revisit the lessons of the day. You will need tape or chalk and space to play.
Make a straight line using chalk or tape. Mark one side as true and the other as false. Ask a question and kids have to jump to the right or wrong side.