Modalities:

Print means that most content is in print.

Picture means there are a lot of pictures or other graphics.

Visual means that both print and pictures are used in the game.

Verbal means there is some to quite a bit of talking involved.

Listening means that listening is involved.

Auditory means that both Verbal and Listening skills are used in the game.

Hands-on means that there is significant hand movement of cards, pieces, etc.

Whole Body means that the whole body is moving.

Writing means that writing is involved.

Dispositions:

Move means that there is significant physical activity.  These games are great for the very active child who hates to sit still.

Produce means that there is a clear (to the student) and quantifiable learning objective.  These children like to have a game labeled “educational” whereas that adjective is the kiss of death to most of the other dispositions.

Invent or Discovery means that there is discovery and/or experimentation involved.

Interact means that there is significant social interaction.  This learning style enjoys most games so it is only listed it when the group interaction is above average.

Create means that the game requires significant thought and/or creativity.

There is another vital element of learning that is important in regard to physical movement or what schools like to call Physical Education.  This is explained in depth in Smart Moves by Carla Hannaford.  Therefore, we have included the notations Vestibular and Proprioceptive to help you pick out P.E. games and activities that give your child reinforcement  in these sensory areas.

Vestibular refers to awareness of body balance and movement.

Proprioceptive  refers to the relative position of different parts of the body and the strength of effort used in movement.

Most games combine multiple elements, so we listed only the salient ones.  Likewise, any one child’s learning style is far more complex than these simple definitions and each child’s personality includes a combination of several modalities and dispositions.  Watch for the elements in games that your child likes and look for those or similar elements in other games

Skip counting is also a good way to begin learning multiplication.  We carry the 100 Sheep CD and Booklet if you would like a Christian skip-counting CD.  The Wonder Number Game and its accompanying activities can also be used to teach and reinforce addition, subtraction and multiplication concepts.  If your child is still a very concrete thinker (counting on fingers, abacus, etc.), you probably should put multiplication aside for another year.  Don’t worry, your child will master it quickly once he is ready.  In the meantime, work with money and time and games that add up multiples like Parrot Times Tables and play dominoes and dice games that score for multiples.  You can also play Farkle and after a while, change the rules of scoring so that you add up or multiply the face value of the dice.  The Wonder Number Game board can also be used to teach the concept of multiplication by laying out several sets of chips starting at the 1 square.  The number in the last square covered will be the answer.  There are more detailed instructions included with the game for teaching many more math concepts. Another very useful product for teaching about the concept of multiplication is the Two Color Desk Top Abacus.

Once your child is beginning to understand what multiplication is, you can play games that help him become more proficient.  We have included both introductory games and games for those who know the multiplication tables fairly well but need practice to solidify their memory and speed up recall.  There is a huge difference between mere memorization and useful comprehension.  For this reason, we hope you will be more concerned with understanding what multiplication is than speed of memory retrieval at this point.  Speed will come in time and games can improve speed.  There is plenty of time.

At this level, we included games for fractions, time, money and spatial reasoning.  These are games that beginners can enjoy but most of these selections will still give enjoyment for years to come.  Some will become family classics that you will still be playing when your children are teens.

Finally, we have included some products at the bottom of the table which are not games, but which can be very helpful to children who have trouble memorizing.  Multiplication Songs from Audio Memory Publishing lets you sing along and fill in the blanks. The next phrase tells you if you were correct.  For those who prefer to sing the tables to classical music, we suggest Multiplication to Classical Music from Sing N Learn.

If your children like to sing and move, get the DVD from Kids Can Do and exercise to music while you sing along with a troupe of kids of all ages at the same time you are seeing the multiplication facts on your TV screen.  This DVD is the deal of the century.  You now get four videos: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division for the price of one!

If you aren’t into singing and jumping around, you will find your child will learn the multiplication tables easily with The Bornstein Multiplication Memorizer Kit.  Memory expert Arthur Bornstein designed these 9” X 12” cards using multiple memory techniques.  One side of the card has a memorable drawing illustrating the math fact.  The other contains a script for the teacher to help the student.  You can learn the multiplication facts with the Bornstein Kit in a tiny fraction of the time it would take using traditional flash cards and your student is unlikely to forget his facts once he has learned them the Bornstein way.

The schools are pushing third graders to do a great deal of writing.  We used to say that children were burned out at school by the third grade, but today many are sick of  “school” long before that.  Writing utilizes hand-eye coordination as well as creative thinking.  For many children, writing much more than a few sentences at age eight is very taxing.  There is no hurry.  Fifty years ago, children in the third grade were writing two or three sentences at a time and concentrating more on learning cursive that cranking out “reports.”  Our schools have deteriorated greatly since then but the answer isn’t to do more, earlier.  When children are pushed to do what is not developmentally appropriate, they do the best they can, but they also tend to develop inappropriate brain pathways which lead to dead ends later on.  Dr. Jane Healy explains this very well in her heavily researched book Endangered Minds.

Practicing handwriting with copy work and dictating longer stories to mom is sufficient “writing” for most third graders.  Some children, however, love to write at an early age.  Encourage them and help them develop good handwriting at the same time.  The vocabulary and spelling games listed will build their writing skills for years to come.

Because of the testing mania which came in with No Child Left Behind, many schools are teaching the parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc.) in the third grade and even younger.  This can cause great difficulty for many children because the parts of speech are abstract concepts and most eight year olds are still very concrete in their thinking.  Therefore, we do not recommend that you push too hard for understanding of the parts of speech in a formal way as yet.  You have a choice: spend hundreds of hours drilling parts of speech now, or wait a few years and do it in a very short time.  Until they are ready for formal grammar training consider using Mad Libs Junior and the Ruth Heller books.

The following picture books are excellent for introducing a variety of grammar concepts:

• Eats, Shoots & Leaves – Why Commas Really DO Make a Difference! By Bonnie Timmons
• Dear Deer- A Book of Homophones by Gene Barretta
• A Lime, a Mime, a Pool of Slime – More About Nouns by Brian P. Cleary
• Crazy like a Fox – A Simile Story by Loreen Leedy

This colorful series by Ruth Heller will give your children a good concept of the parts of speech in an interesting and concrete way.

• Behind the Mask: A Book about Prepositions                                                                                       
•  A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns                                                                             
•  Fantastic! Wow! And Unreal!: A Book about  Interjections and Conjunctions                             
• Kites Sail High: A Book about Verbs                                                                                                         
• Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book about Adjectives                                                                        
• Merry-Go-Round: A Book about Nouns                                                                                         
• Mine, All Mine: A Book about Pronouns                                                                                           
•  Up, Up and Away: A Book about Adverbs

The Lois Burdett Shakespeare Can Be Fun Series is a great way to introduce your children to Shakespeare:

• A Child’s Portrait of Shakespeare
• Romeo and Juliet for Kids
• Hamlet for Kids
• Much Ado About Nothing For Kids
• Macbeth for Kids
• The Tempest For Kids
• Midsummer Night’s Dream for Kids
• Twelfth Night For Kids

THEME:  Body and senses as well as general science topics.

HELPFUL BOOKS:                                                                      

• The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole & Bruce Degen
• The Magic School Bus Gets Baked in a Cake by Joanna Cole
• The Healthy Body Cookbook by Joan D’Amico & Karen Eich Drummond
• Milk: From Cow to Carton by Aliki

These games will no doubt generate many questions, which you will need to try to answer.  This is what makes homeschooling especially fun.  You can show your children how to find the answers to their questions.  Check your library for good science picture books.

THEMES:  North American Geography and Native Americans

• Brendan the Navigator by Jean Fritz
• Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas
• Before Columbus: The Leif Eriksson Expedition by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
• Leif the Lucky by Ingri & Edgar D’Aulaire
• Meet Christopher Columbus by James T. de Kay
• Where do You Think You’re Going, Christopher Columbus? By Jean Fritz

• Who in the World was The Forgotten Explorer:  The Story of Amerigo Vespucci by Lorene Lambert
• The Very First Thanksgiving:  Pioneers on the Rio Grande by Bea Bragg
• Who Was Ferdinand Magellan?  By Sydelle Kramer
• Chocolate: A Sweet History by Sandra Markle
• Sir Francis Drake and the Foundation of a World Empire by Jim Gallagher
• The Queen’s Pirate – Francis Drake by Sarah Courtauld
• Feliciana’s California Miracle (the story of the Anza expedition) by Esther Comstock
• Pocahontas by Shannon Zemlicka

• Squanto and the First Thanksgiving by Joyce K. Kessel
• Corn is Maize: The Gift of the Indians by Aliki
• History Pockets: Native Americans (Evan – Moor)
• If You Lived with the Sioux Indians by Ann McGovern
• If You Lived with the Hopi by Anne Kamma
• If You Lived with the Iroquios by Ellen Levine
• If You Lived with the Indians of the Northwest Coast by Anne Kamma

Jim Weiss CD Recordings:

• American Tall Tales                                                                                                               
• Gone West: Bold Adventures of American Explorers and Pioneers

Use your maps to find things and people that interest you.  If you hear of a place on the news, find it on the map.  If you have a relative who lives in a different state or country, find his or her location on the map.  When you read about an explorer, find his route on your map and when you read about Native Americans, locate the general area where they lived on the map.

Teach your child about road maps and let him be your “navigator” when you go places – even to the grocery store.  When you go on a field trip, see if you can find the location on a map and teach your children how to do it.  A large magnifying glass is very helpful for children because the tiny print may be hard for young eyes to read.  Treat this exercise like a treasure hunt.  Children love to do things that are real and important.  If you make it sound like fun, it will be.  The parent’s attitude is vitally important to The Game Curriculum.  You can’t just throw games at your children and expect them to learn.  They might, but more likely, they will soon be on your heels with, “I’m bored!”  To make this really work for you, you must participate in most of the games AND have fun yourself.