Simple Homeschool Challenge: A Book + A Game Each Day Of The Month

Have you fallen into the habit of box-checking in your homeschool? It’s an easy thing to do and we have all been there. It’s usually about this time of year when the newness has worn off and we start just checking boxes on our homeschool to-do list while we wait for Summer. A great way to reset, break out of the slump, and get back into the homeschool swing of things after the holidays is by participating in our favorite family challenge.

A Book And A Game Each Of The Month In Your Homeschool

Every January, we ease back into our homeschool routine with one of our favorites: a book and a game a day. What does that mean? A book and a game a day means I call our homeschool day a success as long as we manage to read one book and play one game.

Want to try this challenge with your homeschoolers? You don’t have to wait for us, a book and a game a day works wonders any time of year. Keep reading to learn more about how you can join us in the challenge this year.

Why Books and Games?

It’s totally possible to just read books and still learn just about everything you need to know. In fact, some of the world’s most successful people are those that spend time reading and learning from books long after they’re finished with school. Helping our daughter fall in love with books and love reading is a huge part of ensuring that she will be a successful lifelong learner.

Most people wouldn’t argue that reading books together is a great way to approach homeschooling, but what about games? Is playing games really a great method for homeschooling? Yes!

Wait – an entire book every day? If that feels too ambitious or stressful after a busy holiday season, don’t worry. You can choose picture books or short stories or just read a chapter a day in one book.

There are games about everything. Even games as simple as Candy Land are filled with learning opportunities. Games provide a fun and engaging way to practice skills, review what you’ve learned, and even introduce new concepts and topics to your homeschoolers in an exciting way.

How to Participate in this Homeschool Challenge

Every January, we challenge ourselves to play at least one game and read at least one book each day. This approach is the perfect way for us to ease back into busy homeschool days after the holidays. Plus, it’s a lot of fun! Want to participate in the “a book and a game a day” challenge with us this year? Here’s how:

First, read a book. Any book will work for this challenge.
Then, play any game you choose.
Follow me on Instagram and Facebook to see what we’re reading and playing.
Post pictures of your book and game picks as often as you can with the hashtag #abookandagameaday so we can all follow along and be inspired.
Be sure to keep an eye out for amazing book and game giveaway from me this month as a thank you for joining in the challenge!

Books and Games by Subject

Any book you read and any game you play will be a fun learning experience for your family this year. You can take it up a notch by pairing books with related games to really maximize the learning fun with your homeschoolers this January (or whenever you decide to try it). Check out some of my favorite pairings below.

Art & Music

Our daughter Emily loves art and I’ll admit that while art projects are a great way to learn all kinds of fun homeschooling lessons, I’m not an artist and the crafts can become quite stressful for me. Thankfully, my husband is just as passionate about art as Emily. These book and game pairings are some of our family’s favorite ways to learn about art and music without the crafts and projects:

These fun books and games will inspire your homeschoolers to get creative and help them build confidence as they learn to express themselves through art and music. Plus, they might even fall in love with a famous artist or composer along the way. Get more ideas for art & music books and games in your homeschool:

Geography

Are you having trouble getting your homeschoolers to remember state capitals or European countries? There’s a game for that and a book too! Get ready to travel the world or just the United States with some of our favorite geography books and games:

Want more adventures around the world and in the states? There are so many great books and games for homeschoolers of all ages in the category! Check out more of our favorite books and games for history and geography:

Language Arts

There are lots of games for learning math skills from counting to fractions to money, but what about language arts? Good news! We have found lots of great games for practicing reading, spelling, grammar, and even writing with your homeschoolers this year too. Check out these combinations:

Try more of our favorite books for learning language arts and get tips for teaching language arts without a curriculum:

Math

There are lots of really great math books you can use to introduce new concepts and help bring equations to life with your homeschoolers this year. From counting books to fraction fairy tales, and even math adventures, you’re sure to find something to spark your child’s imagination. Check out some of our favorite pairings here:

Want to see more of our favorite math books and math games to play with your homeschoolers?

Science

You can still have lots of hands-on fun learning science with your homeschoolers even if you don’t do lots of messy experiments. We love a good science experiment, but these science learning games are a whole lot of fun too! Pair them with books for a winning combination your homeschoolers won’t forget.

There are so many fun ways to explore science through books and games with your homeschoolers! See more of our favorites:

Below are some examples of books and games we have enjoyed reading and playing in the past during our January A Book and A Game A Day Challenge. You can see everything we have read and played here.

Will you join us in our homeschool book & game challenge this year? This challenge is a favorite of ours during the month of January, but you can start your own “a book and a game a day” homeschool challenge any time of year.

And don’t worry, you don’t need to have 31 different games, one for every day of the month. You can play your favorites again and again. Plus, there are all kinds of awesome games you can play with just a deck of cards.

Grab your free printable below to join us in the homeschool challenge: a book + a game every day for a month!

6 Comments

Helen B says:

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What a lovely idea, like you we read a lot, so thank you for the sheets, have printed them of and have them on our cupboard, youngest is enjoying colouring each square as we go.
Christina Meyers says:

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Woo hoo! What a fun way to begin our year. Thanks for the challenge.
June says:

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This is pretty much our homeschool, plus personal projects. Love it!
Sandi says:

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Love this! It would be great to see a video of what you plan to use for games/books in January.
Patty B. says:

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I just printed a coloring sheet to keep track of our books and games. Our goal is 23 days!
Dorothy says:

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We started this challenge last year and absolutely loved it!
So much fun and we really learned alot of new things just by reading and playing. That’s what education should be.