Week in the Life {Game School}

We started our week with a trip to Missouri.  We had lunch at Grandma and Papa's and then, while Evalynn was napping, Mike and the four older children went to see Papa George and Grammy.

The only photo I took of the day.  Somedays are just for enjoying.

I mixed things up this week for school and exchanged the spelling and reading workbooks for games.  This was honestly mentally taxing for me (games take a certain level of excitement and brain power that I don't have all day everyday), but the kids really enjoyed it and I'm thinking we'll try it every six weeks or so.

For each day I tried to plan a group game, partner games, and a quick game, plus we used our one player "brain games" liberally throughout the week.  The children continued their math lessons and I still did phonics/reading with the younger two scholars.

Math with Zayden...

Mia using one of our one player "brain games" - Trucky 3.

Xavier working a brain game, Anti-Virus.

Zayden, using the Little Red Riding Hood smart game.

My view from the chair - I was reading aloud while they did brain games.  I wasn't sure if the focus and comprehension would be there, but it worked well.

Natalee has homework for co-op, so here she is reviewing her assignment for the afternoon.  The older two children are learning to pace out their homework and work on it bits at a time.

Sweet Evalynn feeding her babies.

Shut the Box was the quick game.

I tried to switch up the partners for team games everyday.  Natalee and Zayden playing Battleship.

Ameliya and Xavier playing Moby.

Evie got in on the "games" with the Squigz.  She loves sticking them to the window.

Learning a new family game - Rummikub.

And a new spelling game - Bananagrams!

Ending Monday with more food - Evie ate so much food and tried a lot of new things.

Tuesday started with a head lump.

Evie wanted to "do games," too.  All week.  This made the game school atmosphere a little difficult.

Partner games - Bed Bugs.  Great for fine motor.

and Bugs in the Kitchen.

Boggle Jr. instead of writing.

Look at this, guys!  Building tall towers on Wednesday!

Our table was making me feel a bit ADD-ish.

Mia's turn at Boggle Jr.

Evalynn was very discontent on Wednesday.  We tried a lot of things.  The colored chickpeas lasted about ten minutes.

Finally dot stickers and a paper on the wall won her attention.  Sometimes you just have to keep trying.

She's very proud of her "paper."

After a lot of research and some stressors on my end, we decided to switch math curriculums for Natalee.  We are trying The Good and the Beautiful and hoping it's less anxiety inducing for her.

Build or Boom!

The quick game was States and Capitals memory that I made.  These cards will also work in our Bee Bot later.  We only did the states we've learned so far.

We did a states identification quiz in geography to see where everyone was (focusing on the oldest 2 being able to identify all the states).  Natalee switched one answer around, Xavier aced it, and these two little people did so much better than I ever imagined.  So proud of them!

Family game - Dutch Blitz.  It's a favorite.

Mia had OT on Wednesday.  She loves her sessions.

By Thursday I was wearing down, but hanging in there as much as possible.  I had purposefully put the new games we needed to learn at the beginning of the week when my vigor was fresher.

Mia and Zayden did Moby instead of math book lessons.

Natalee giving her new math a go.

And we discovered that Evalynn loves matching letters to the magnet board!  I handed them to her one at a time while tell her the name and she searched for their match.

Then I removed Ameliya's name from the back of the magnet tray and put Evalynn's on instead.  I was reminded how quickly the days turn into years...

Sprinkled among our game week was, of course, therapy sessions, swim, soccer, and gymnastics, and an afternoon of play with the cousins.  We ended the week with a park day with our friends, and then Grammy and Papa George came up to watch Xavier's Friday soccer games.  

I took this little snippet of my handsome boy getting ready for the day.

Saturday was spent cleaning and relaxing.