The Best Art & Music Games for Your Homeschool

Games have been a big part of our family long before we even considered homeschooling. Games are an excellent way to spend quality time together as a family.

“Gameschooling” is something that I did not find valuable to our homeschool in the beginning. I found games valuable to our family culture but not to academics. I did not see them as a resource for learning.

That was until I Emily could NOT learn her math facts. It was like they would fall out of her head. I was so frustrated with her and myself. My husband suggested we just take some time off from “school” and enjoy the holidays together (it was the week of Thanksgiving).

We ended up taking from Thanksgiving through the first of the year off. While we did not do any structured school we played A LOT of games as a family. The one we played the most was Yahtzee (it is my husbands favorite).

Guess what? When we began school again in January Emily knew ALL of her math facts. Not even just the simple ones we were focusing on either, but more complex problems like 6+6+6=18. We all know that is from her playing Yahtzee.

That is when I realized games were not only great for learning but they were going to be ESSENTIAL in our homeschool. That my friends is the day we became gameschoolers.

Games are not only great for learning but they were going to be ESSENTIAL in our homeschool. Here are the top 25 games for art & music.

All games are educational in numerous ways.

Even the simplest games teach turn taking and losing/winning gracefully. I get asked questions all the time about games, so I decided to do a gameschooling series. This series will feature our favorite games broken down into subjects. This post will be all about elective (STEM, mindfulness, art, and music) games.

 

ART & MUSIC GAMES

 The Grand Museum of Art Board Mythical Creatures Drawing Game & Animal Bob Ross the Art of Chill BrainBox for Kids – Art Card Junk Art Plastic Board Games Go Fish for Modern Artists Card Endless Games Encore Board Game – Spontuneous – The Song Game – Doodle Dice Game by Brybelly My Big Art Show: A Card USAOPOLY Telestrations Original 6 Player | Professor Noggin’s History of Art Trivia

 

S.T.E.M. GAMES

 Melissa & Doug Suspend Family Game ThinkFun Laser Chess Two Player Strategy ThinkFun Code Master Programming Logic Game ThinkFun Robot Turtles STEM Toy and Hasbro A2120E24 – Jenga Classic – Peaceable Kingdom Engineering Ants ThinkFun Gravity Maze Marble Run Brain Ravensburger Make ‘N’ Break for Ages

 

MINDFULNESS GAMES

 Mindfulness Therapy Games: Social Skills Game Don’t Go Bananas – A CBT Play Therapy Supply Mindfulness Matters: The Social Emotional Games NoWaries S.T.O.R.M. | Mad Dragon: An Anger Control Card The Yoga Garden Game EQtainment Q’s Race to The Top ThinkFun Yoga Dice Game for Boys

SHOP EVEN MORE ELECTIVE GAMES

Tracking Your Art & Music Game Play

Being able to quantify game playing as “school” doesn’t have to be hard. You can just keep track of the games you play. I reccomend using a game log. There is one avaliable in my FREE Guide to Gameschooling. It is perfect for logging the games you’ve played and easy to add into a homeschool portfolio if you have to keep one.