Free Educational Games

Fun Games for Kids

Free educational games are great to help your children learn and are fun games for kids.

This all-subject, year-long review game will help them to remember everything they have learned throughout your entire school year.

By playing free educational games a couple of times per week, you can have a fun way to review everything they are studying and have fun games for kids at the same time.

To play the game, the kids choose a marker. For each turn, they roll a dice and move it that many spaces. Each color dot on the game board will represent a different school subject. Ex: green dots = science yellow = spelling

Now, where do you get the questions?

This is where you have to stay on your toes. You make questions based on what they are studying each week.

Ex: Math - If your child is studying adding fractions write four cards with a addition fraction problem on them and add them to the game each week.

Ex: Grammar - If you are studying prepositions, make cards where they have to name three prepositions or have a sentence on the card and they have to tell which word is the preposition.

Ex: Science - Name two evergreen trees (or whatever you happen to be studying)

Ex: Latin - Make cards for each week's vocabulary words. (or use your spelling words or regular vocabulary words)

This doesn't take as long as it sounds and you can use questions from your kid's books -- the ones they usually have at the end of a chapter. This is a good place to get questions for all of your free educational games. Get questions from chapter summaries and chapter tests. This is the information they need to be reviewing.

While you are sitting at the table with your kids while they are working on math or some other subject, get your stacks of index cards and make a few questions for each subject.

Here's how you make the game:

Supplies:

Thick piece of poster board (the kind used for science fair projects)Stickers or paints.Small toys or markers for playing piecesDiceIndex cards in different colors

Step #1

You need to make your game board. Before you make the board, do a rough sketch on a piece of paper. You're planning out the route of the game. It's perfectly fine to copy the layout of a game like "Life" if you want to. That's what I did.

Also plan in some extras for your game like "bonus" spots. If they land on these spots, they get to go forward three extra spaces if they get the answer correct. Penalty spots - if they land on one of these spots, they either have to answer aextra questions or they have to go back three spaces. Whatever you want to do for these spots is fine, it's just a way to add a little twist to the game and make it exciting.

If you're good at drawing, you can draw pictures on your board to liven it up. If you're not good at drawing, go to the scrapbooking section in any discount store and buy stickers that apply to the subject. Ex: for science, any sticker having to do with nature, space, or science equipment. Math: numbers, mathematical signs (plus and minus etc). If you can'tfind stickers you think are appropriate.

Step #2

Decide what subjects your game is going to cover.

I did Science, History, Math, Grammar, and Latin.

Step #3

Decide what color of paint or sticker is going to represent each subject. I use the paints. They come in a pack of four colors. Each color is in a bottle with a sponge top. All you have to do is press it on the board and it makes a round dot.If you can't find these paints in a craft supply store or in a school supply store, just buy large dot stickers. Check a scrapbooking store. You should be able to find all kinds of neat stickers to use for your game board.

I used green for science, brown for Latin, red for Math, Yellow for history, blue for grammar.

Step #4

Make a dot for "Start" and one for "Finish".

Step #5

Now, take your dot painters (or colored sticker dots) and make dots on your board, alternating colors as you go.

For instance, I did, greeen, brown, red, yellow, blue, green, brown, red, yellow, blue. Keep alternating the colors like this along the path of the board going from start to finish.

Step #6

Make question cards. As the year goes along, you will be adding questions but for the start of the game, you will have to come up with some general questions that covere each subject.

Ex: Math - ask questions about mathematical problems they already know. 24 x 2 = Ex: Grammar - What is a noun? Name the nouns in this sentence - Dad went to the store and bought a flashlight.

To get ideas for questions, take a look at some of our worksheets. You can use these to make questions for your games.

When you are making question cards, keep the cards as close to the color you chose to represent the subjects. If you used green dots for science on the board, use green index cards for science questions.

How to Play the Game:

Get out the game board, markers, dice, and question cards.

Put the question cards in stacks according to their subject. All green in one stack for science. All blue in one stack for grammar etc.

Let each child roll the dice to see who plays first and then start playing in a clockwise manner.

Let the first child roll. If he rolled a five, let him count ahead five places and see what color he landed on - but don't let him move his marker yet. If he landed on red, you draw a math question and he answers it. If he answers it correctly, he gets to move to that spot. If he misses the question, he stays where he is.

Play continues like this until one child gets to the finish spot.

Have some sort of reward for the child: one piece of candy - doesn't have to do one chore - fewer math problems one day - etc.

This game is fun for the kids and it helps them to remember what they have studied all year long. It does take some work for mom, but the reward of your children not forgetting what you're teaching them is worth it.

MULTI-AGE ADAPTATIONS

If you want to play this game with all of your children or varying ages, you can.

When you make the cards, on each card have one question for each child. So if you have four children, make a question covering that subject for each one.

Try adding free educational games to your homeschool curriculum. It breaks the monotony of schoolwork and really makes it more fun for you and the kids.

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