Game schooling

Yes, there is such a thing as game schooling. And funschooling. And unschooling. 

Game schooling is exactly what you'd expect it to be like.... learning through games

Before I really dove into the idea of game schooling-- I thought to myself " how much can you REALLY learn from CLUE or Monopoly?"

Here's exactly what I've found out over the years:

When playing Clue, we are learning:

Colors

Reading

Puzzle solving (I know this, and I know this.... but I don't know this... what do I need to figure this out.... similar to algebra, perhaps?) 

Strategic planning  by thinking ahead (if I pay attention to which room, weapon and person my mom is asking me to reveal, I can eliminate a few choices). 

Deductive reasoning ( I can assume this to be true and this to be true, so this is certainly a realistic solution to the problem). 

But my favorite part about it all is when something pops up that I was not expecting. 

The pen Jon was using was not working properly. He started to take it apart and look at the moving pieces inside. Some might say that he is not focused on the task in front of him, but I would say that he's nurturing his ***future engineering***mind. 

What other games do we use in our schooling?

Catan

Trade. Build. Settle. That is the premise of Catan.  You build road and cities. You trade goods.  You barter.  You must survive.  

It's all about strategy here. 

This one was a gift for us one Christmas.

Risk. 

This is another game about strategy. It's about diplomacy, conflict and  conquest. 

Capture territories. Form alliances. Eliminate players.  Add an extension pack and go on secret missions. 

This was a random purchase to add to our collection for school. 

Ticket to Ride

This was one of my first purchases when I started looking into game schooling. It is easily one of our favorites to play. 

Geography, obviously, is a huge part of this game. But strategy certainly is too. The object of the game is to build the most and/or longest railway systems throughout North America. The best part is you can add extension packs to include other continents as well! 
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We can never forget about chess. This is Jon's favorite game, hands down.  My brain hurts by the end of a game, but my heart is singing.. 

There's so much you can do with your children  to help them learn through the use of games. Some families solely use games to educate their children (there's 100s if not 1000s of options out there) and others use games to supplement their curriculum. 

Either way, gaming is part of our unschooling journey.