My family enjoys board gaming. Especially my husband. He works on writing for a local gaming company and has his own blog over at The Eclectic Bean where he reviews board games. So, our children have grown up around the game table. In a time when children are exposed to far more screen time than they need, we find board gaming an important part of our their social development. Human interaction is important, especially in this age of technology. By why else would we find it so beneficial to include games in our homeschool day? There are so many benefits to gaming.
What games teach us…
- Gaming teaches our children patience. Games require learning to wait and take turns.
- Games teach cooperation and healthy competition.
- Games teach us that we don’t always win. Yes, I said it. Not everyone gets a prize, not everyone wins. No, we don’t let our children win (believe me, they win plenty of times, on their own).
- Games teach a variety of academic skills. Scorekeeping reinforces math concepts and many games require reading and other such academic knowledge.
- Games teach our children critical thinking, problems solving and logic skills.
- Games engage our children and grab their attention. They don’t realize they are learning. Shhh!
- Interacting around the game table gives our children the opportunity to observe and understand social norms.
As you can see, all children can benefit from gaming. But for our Special Needs and ASD children, these benefits are even more important. I have seen amazing growth in Mr. Man’s ability to win/lose gracefully. I have seen him learn empathy. He has the opportunity to practice social skills and learn appropriate social interaction in a real-life environment and he has fun doing it. Yes, I know we can only handle so many rounds of Candy Land and Hi Ho Cherry-O! Therefore, over several blog posts, I will introduce you to a few of our favorites that may be a little less mind-numbing for the adults.
We picked up a set of Rory’s Story Cubes to help Mr. Man build language and storytelling 
skills. Each player takes turns rolling nine dice. Each die has six unique pictures on them. The roller will use the pictures to create a story. This is a great game for children who still struggle with competition, winning and losing, since they are not a factor in this game. For Mr. Man, this game helps him plan and order his thoughts. The game may also be altered for younger children by allowing them to roll fewer dice. Both Mr. Man and Monkey enjoy this game and adore listening to Daddy tell stories on his turn. Playing with your children provides them with examples of how to order events and tell oral stories. It is also a wonderful way to build relationships and laugh together.
I have found Rory’s Story Cubes to be of excellent quality and there are several themes to choose from. My boys love the Batman version. I plan on using our Story Cubes as a way to springboard into some writing activities, in the future.
Here is an example of one of the stories…..
“Once upon a time, there was a treasure and the sun comed down. The guy said, ‘Go to the castle.’ And he saw a balloon. He comed to a ladder and the poison comed to the sun. The sun comed up and that was bad!” (Monkey, age 4) As you can see, we are still working on some skills.
(This post contains affiliate links, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. However, I never recommend an item unless we use it and love it! Any items linked are items that I have been recommending to friends and family long before this blog!)
MamaBean Az 