Games for School Age Kids

If you're trying to keep the TV off, you'll often have to help your kids learn to stay entertained. One way to do this is through games that don't involve screens. Here are some great ideas for fun and educational games for your school age kids.

Kids are older now so the games can be more advanced.  At this age, most kids love to play outdoors.  Why not grab your sneakers and head outdoors with them! Kids really need to spend some time outdoors, according to expert Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

How about a game of hopscotch outside?  With sidewalk chalk, draw the hopscotch squares.  The squares alternate between one square on top of two squares on top of one square.  The pattern continues until you have ten squares.  Each square is numbered. 

Using a marble, you throw it so that it lands on one of the numbered squares.  You have to jump to that square and pick up the marble.  There can only be one foot in a square so you have to balance on one foot while you pick up the marble to throw again.  You are the person to beat if you can make it successfully down and back without falling off a square or stepping two feet in one square.

Now that the kids have been reading for a couple of years or more, they can have some fun in the kitchen.  Kitchen activities can be educational.  Start with something easy like a cookie recipe for them to decipher.  Let the kids read the recipe and help to assemble the ingredients.  Give them a variety of measuring cups and spoons to work with. 

They have to figure out the recipe measurements from the utensils that you have given to them.  You may end up with flour all over the counter but it is a good learning experience for them.  Besides, you’ll get someone else to cook for a change.

If kids like to read and act, let them put on a skit.  Each child must choose a favorite scene from their favorite book.  Using puppets that they make themselves, they must act out the scene.  The rest of the family will try to guess what the name of the book is.  The skit can be as long as they need it to be.  Designate a parent to help with the crafts and stay out of the guessing.

Stargazing is a fun way to spend an evening.  Many kids have heard that the moon is made of green cheese.  This is one way to prove that it isn’t.  Through a telescope they can see stars, constellations, the moon, and meteor showers up close and personal.  As they become more accomplished at it, they can read star charts to find where in the sky certain stars exist.

As your kids age, you can play more and more games to increase their knowledge.  Try card games, board games like Scrabble and Pictionary and other outdoor games that use the skills they are learning in school.  The key to a love of learning is to take the pressure off by making it a fun thing to do. 

Board games have always been a favorite among children so it is no wonder that a few innovative companies have developed a line of educational games for kids. There are dozens of games for children of all ages that teach math, science, spelling, problem solving, and even history. Playing these games together as a family helps them to learn new things with little effort. Cariboo by Cranium is a game that teaches younger kids shape recognition, color recognition, letter recognition, and counting in ways that kids find engaging and exciting. Blokus by Educational Insights teaches strategy and reasoning, as well as spatial perception. Scrabble, Cranium, and Trivial Pursuit are great educational games for older kids.