Good educational games make learning fun. They may teach children new facts or reinforce that knowledge. Educational games may be used at school, but you can pick up educational games for use at home, too. Here are some of the best educational games for kids to play at home.
Reading Games
Reading games will require you to read and often comprehend what you’re reading. Reading games may call for the child to read a clue on a card or read a story and then solve a puzzle. This is separate from games that require you to read the instructions. You can create reading games, if you have a plan. For example, the Socratic soccer ball is when you attach reading comprehension questions to a soccer ball. Pass it around and ask the kids to take a question and then answer the question about something your class read. Guided reading beach balls have key questions like “the setting was” or “the main character was”. Roll and retell lets kids do the same by rolling dice. You may want to invest in a reading game for your kid’s education, because it won’t get tired of reading the same story over and over to your child.
Vocabulary and spelling games are a form of reading game. They will run off prepopulated lists. The thrill of winning will keep your kids practicing their spelling words or vocabulary words, while they will get tired of writing things down.
Flash Cards
Flash cards are essential to engraining facts into someone’s memory, whether you’re learning state capitols or math facts. Flash cards are traditionally paper cards, but there are digital flash cards, as well. They are easy for software developers to create, so you can literally find a flash card app for any and every subject you want your children to master.
A novel variation of this is the puzzle card. The puzzle card is a basic puzzle and asks the child to match the various pieces of information. Alphabet puzzle cards and counting puzzle cards are probably the most popular.
Check out our recent review of Teacher Play Phonics and Number Flashcards.
Building Toys
Whether it is Lego or Minecraft, building toys can become educational. It can teach children to count and plan out projects. For example, you can explain the concept of a blueprint and then see if the child can follow it. Seeing models of real-world structures can be more fun than going to a museum, too.
You can use blocks to explain concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Let the kids line up three columns of two and two columns of three, learning that the answer of 3 x 2 is 6 and that 2 x 3 also equals 6.
We love Lego. Take a look at our other Lego posts. Mini Me LEGO Bricks for Imaginative Play.
Trivia Games
Trivia games challenge you to learn facts and recall them. Trivia games are ideal for memorizing far more complex information than fast facts. For example, trivia games help you memorize information like details about natural phenomena or famous figures in history. Educational trivia games encourage you to learn and recall detailed information about Presidents or natural phenomena, while trivia games have you memorize movie titles and details about celebrities. Or you can even make your own fun trivia with a maths puzzle.