Some days, I honestly can’t believe that I get to play games and read books all day. (Some kids never grow up!) So much learning occurs when children play! Carefully selected read alouds and educational games are the foundation of our homeschool. Today I am sharing 100 games and picture books, organized by subject.
(If you need more help after reading this article, check out our free 31-day #GameschoolChallenge!)
One of my favorite things to do in our homeschool is to read a fantastic book and then follow up with a related game or activity.
I’ve grouped our favorite games and picture books together by topic. I hope this list will help your family play together! After you finish reading about our 100 games and picture books, I’d love to hear your favorites!
100 Games and Picture Books for Play-Based Learning
Math
I thought I’d start off with the subject that everyone is always fretting over. Yes, you can count math play as curriculum. I promise! If you don’t believe me, here are some books to convince you!
Book about playing math (for parents):
Number identification and counting:
Honestly, you don’t even need a game to learn to count. You can use anything! One of our favorite book-and-game activities is to read The Button Box and play with buttons like you see here.
Addition and Subtraction:
Logic, Reasoning, and Problem-Solving
Shapes, Colors, and Patterns
Measurement, Time, and Money
One of our favorite ways to learn measurement is just to set the kids loose with a measuring tape or a yardstick. My kids learned to tell time with this handy clock we keep in the kitchen. They learned weather, seasons, days of the week, and months of the year with this calendar we keep in our kitchen.
Multiplication, Division, and Fractions
Read more about our favorite math games and books here:
- 10+ Math Games for Your Homeschool
- 6 Amazing Math Games
- Top Logic and Reasoning Games
- The Best Math Storybooks
- If You Read Your Kids a Math Book…
Language Arts
Here’s the thing… I truly believe that if you live in a language rich environment, if you love the written word, if you read aloud early and often, you’re on the right track. I haven’t listed tons of books here because I don’t believe in drill and kill. Just read heaps of fantastic books together. If you’d like book lists, please join our Virtual Family Book Club. I share plenty there!
Early literacy for littles
Language arts for big kids
Read more about our favorite early literacy, vocabulary building, and language arts resources here:
- 20+ Fantastic Reading and Language Arts Games for Your Homeschool
- Easy Ways to Foster Early Literacy at Home
- Raising Readers: A Resource Page for Parents
- 10+ Picture Books for Gifted Kids
- How to Start a Family Book Club
- Books to Help Parents Grow Readers
History & Geography
This subject was a tricky one for book selections because there are so many ways you could go. I highly encourage everyone to read Give Your Child the World and go from there, based on your current interests.
Love history and geography? Check out these related posts:
- Best Geography Games
- Read Your Way Across the Globe
- 5 Election Books for Kids
- 6 Books for Teaching Map Skills
- Planning a U.S. Election Unit Study
- A Fun, Hands-On White House Lesson
Science
Read more about our favorite science resources here:
- 10+ Science Games for Your Homeschool
- 15+ Books for Your Young Scientist
- Homeschool Science in the Early Years: 5 Ways to Keep it Fun!
- Chemistry Resources Kids Love
STEM/STEAM and Tinkering
Read more about our favorite STEM resources here:
Nature
If you haven’t read Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, please do so!
Read more about our favorite nature resources here:
- 5+ Nature Games for Your Homeschool
- Exploring Nature with Children
- DIY Nature Explorer Pack
- Forts: The Original STEM Challenge
- Fairy House STEM
The Arts
Read more here:
- Games to Encourage Imagination and Creativity
- The Best Art Books for Kids
- Music Appreciation in the Early Years
- Our Favorite Theater and Performance Books
- Music Appreciation Books for Kids
- The Lost Art of Play
What did you think of our 100 games and picture books?
Is your favorite listed here? Did I miss something fantastic? What are your family’s favorite games? What is your family’s favorite picture book right now? Share here. I love hearing from you!
Love books?
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Do you love Gameschooling?
I rely heavily on educational games in our homeschool. Read more here:
If you liked this post, you’re going to love the other 100 Things posts from members of the iHomeschool Network community. Please click the image below to read the other posts (link will go live November 21, 2016, 6:00 A.M. Eastern).
Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley
Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, Scary Mommy, GeekMom, and many others. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
and G+.
Latest posts by Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley (see all)
- Homeschooling When Dad Works A Lot - April 22, 2019
- ‘What’s the Big Deal About First Ladies’ will Delight Your History Lover - April 15, 2019
- Homeschooling and Exercise: How to Make it Work - April 8, 2019
I am going to have to save this list to come back to over and over! (Hello? Christmas?!)
Did you know you can buy blank game boards?!
https://www.amazon.com/Folding-Blank-Board-Pebble-Cover/dp/B005T3NWOY
My son, 7, just made a game from scratch for a local competition; he had so much fun! And I’m totally giving him project credit – planning, designing, tweaking, making the rules…. 🙂
Yes! I’ve seen these. We’ve tried the DIY Board Games kit but haven’t done this… yet 🙂 We have made our own trivia cards and a version of Hullabaloo based on the movie Inside Out. This might be next 🙂
Oh my goodness, he took it to the competition tonight, and it was SO FUN watching him explain it and play it with the adults who will be judging it. (Thankfully, he knows most of them already, but he still tends to shy away from speaking coherently in front of other grownups) The game came together so well, and I was so proud of him. 🙂
<3
Thanks so much for sharing & compiling all these books & games! It’s an amazing resource!
I want all the things!! Mostly I want time to do all the things. 🙂 Lately it seems like half our time is one appointment (vet, house repair, checkup) after another!
Life gets too busy! I hear you!
Love this, I just want to say, Role Playing Games in fell swoop cover almost all of this easily and with a little effert can cover all of these.
So true! That is one genre we have yet to explore, but we plan to in 2017!
This is my new “curriculum” resource page! You put so much value here. I appreciate all your time and thought sharing books and games to stimulate learning.
Aw, thank you so much!
This is an amazing resource! Thank you so much for compiling the list.
Love this list!!!
You are so dangerous to my budget 🙂 We have already liked the MathStart books and own a few. Better worldBooks.com is having their 40% off the Bargain Bin sale…and I found dozens (literally) of those and other books you list here. At least I got them all at a steal!
This is so great! I never would have imagined that there were so many games for actual learning. Thanks so much for putting this all together. The pdf’s are awesome too; thanks for putting the ages and players on there too.
This is such a great resource for homeschooling parents! I loved integrating games in our days. When you have one of those days that everyone is out of sorts, and curriculum just isn’t working, take a break and play together. The kids won’t know they’re learning, and they’ll see that what they’ve already learned helps with games and be motivated to learn more. I’m going to share this with my groups.
Thank you for this all–encompassing post! Would it possible to make this list and the included information on the links into a printable?
I do have a work-in-progress gamelist available for subscribers, if you think that will help!
Thank-you so much for this list!!! I’ve been struggling with different homeschooling formats and family games and stories sound completely perfect I love how you have everything broken down by subject matter it will make filing the education reports we need to complete to legally educate our children here so much easier. I will recommend this site to all my homeschooling connections. Can’t thank you for this enough 🙂 Now all I have to to is organize our schedual and gather the games/books. 🙂
I hope it helps you! Happy holidays!