Monopoly + Uno = Math: Creative Homeschooling

I try to keep school interesting at my house. I homeschool my kids (7, 5, and almost 3) and finished first grade with my oldest this year. I use a lot of games for teaching, because it keeps learning fun. When kids have fun, they stay engaged, which helps them learn more. 

To teach my son math, I have used the Monopoly board game and the Uno card game among other things. How do these teach math? With Uno, at the end of each round, the winner of the round gets all the points from the cards remaining in the other players’ hands. I have my son do all the math in his head to add up all the card points. Then he calculates the running total on paper to see who reaches a certain point amount first. With Monopoly, players use play money to purchase properties and pay rent. Again, I have my son do the math in his head. 

Examples: If Marvin Gardens costs $280 and I pay with a $500 bill, how much change do I get back? If rent is 4 times the number on the dice, how much do I owe you? If you want to buy 3 houses and they cost $150 each, how much is that? If the board has 10 spaces on each side, you’re on Park Place, and you roll 8...where will you land?

We’re applying math to real-world situations, which helps make math feel real and useful. For further reading on math through real-world situations versus rote calculation drills, see this article in Psychology Today by Peter Gray. In fact, for reading on education in general, read Peter Gray's book Free to Learn. He has a perspective on education that challenges, to say the least, the current standard model of school in the United States.

I also use games to work on geography skills—Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? and Ticket To Ride. The Carmen Sandiego game is sort of a geography trivia game which would be way too hard for my 7-year-old if we played it strictly by the rules. But….I give him lots of help and hints to guide him to the right answers, because the point is not for me to beat him but for him to learn. In Ticket to Ride, you have to build train routes between major cities across the US and Canada. You're staring at the map for the duration of the game with the cities marked on it and figuring out how to get from one place to another. Bonus...it's really fun for adults too! Ticket to Ride also has several other versions available including Europe, Nordic Countries, UK, Asia and India.

We have a board game for teaching computer programming basics too. It's called Robot Turtles. You use cards to write programs and functions to get your turtle to its jewel via forward, right, left and laser commands.

Now you have a little glimpse into our homeschooling world. Do you have a suggestion for a cool game to add to our curriculum?

Corinne Stokes