Want to be the hero of your homeschool week? Pull out a game board!

In this episode, Ginny and Mary Ellen share how to “gamify” your homeschooling—turning lessons into fun challenges that build motivation, confidence, and joy in learning. Discover how games activate the brain’s reward system, sneak in skill-building, and bring your family closer together (while making Mom look like a genius).

Show Notes:

• Activating the brain’s reward system releases dopamine—making learning pleasurable.
• A perfect boost for memorizing math facts, Latin declensions, and more.
• Board games and gamified lessons can be your best-kept homeschool secret.

Playing Games vs. Gamifying Lessons

Playing Games = Using an existing board, card, or online game to reinforce skills.
Gamifying Lessons = Adding game-style elements—points, levels, challenges—to regular schoolwork.

Gamification makes learning feel like play by adding:

• Friendly competition
• Small rewards
• Visible achievements

The focus is still on learning, but the experience feels like a game!

How to Gamify Your Homeschool

• Award points or badges for completed tasks.
• Allow badges to be traded for privileges (screen time, outings, desserts).
• Laugh about it—yes, it’s a little like potty-training bribery, but it works!

Examples:

• Each handwriting sheet = 5 minutes of tablet time.
• A near-perfect math lesson = 10 extra minutes before bedtime.
• “Beat the clock” challenges for spelling or Latin drills.
• 100-day streak = family outing or prize.

Learning Through Play

Games aren’t just fun—they teach life lessons:

• Taking turns and waiting patiently
• Losing gracefully and trying again
• Congratulating others on success
• Counting, reading, strategy, and critical thinking

Favorite Educational Games

Try these family favorites for skill-building and fun:

• Scrabble – spelling and vocabulary
• Bird Bingo – nature and observation
• Yahtzee – math and probability
• Count Your Chickens (Peaceable Kingdom) – teamwork for younger kids
• Kerplunk – logic and planning
• Memory games – recall and focus
• Monopoly – money management
• Math Bingo or Flashcard War – fast-paced review

Bottom Line: Whether you’re playing a classic game or creating your own, the goal is joyful learning. Sometimes the lesson is math or spelling—sometimes it’s simply family togetherness.

❤️ Homeschooling Resources

• Seton Home Study School
• Seton Testing Services

So many problems that homeschool moms face can be solved by developing the habit of consistency. Lack of consistency has derailed many a homeschool.

Today, Ginny and Mary Ellen distill their years of experience into ten simple and practical tips to bring harmony of practice, firmness of character, and lasting success to your homeschool.

Show Notes:

Consistency can be hard in every season of homeschool life. It’s hard for everyone. Mostly it’s about developing good habits, and each year presents a new set of circumstances, so new habits and routines must be developed.

These Ten Tips Will Help Get You in the New Groove.

• Have weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals.
• Start the day with what is most important and difficult to get done.
• Keep to a daily rhythm: do the same things at around the same time every day. Children, especially small children, do much better with routines.
• Set clear expectations.
• Habit stack. The excellent book Habit Stacking by S.J. Scott recommends linking a new habit to an already existing one. For example, you brush your teeth every morning, so while you are doing that, you can say your morning offering.
• Treat your homeschool hours as sacrosanct. Do not look at your phone, turn on the TV, or answer the door. You are at work, and only emergencies should distract you.
• Be miserly with your time outside of homeschool. Carefully and prayerfully discern outside activities.
• Have a “set in concrete” check-in time for each child to keep them accountable and to make sure they are keeping up with the work.
• Don’t schedule too much work in a day.
• a. Start with too little and gradually increase to the sweet spot.
• b. Do some subjects like history and science every other day.
• c. Make a schedule that works for each child. Overwhelm is death to consistency.
• Once in a while, be inconsistent. Stepping out of the box helps keep you on track when you need to be.

Habit Stacking by S.J. Scott

Homeschooling Resources

Seton Home Study School

Seton Testing Services

Remember life as a newlywed? You vaguely knew you would have to cook, but hey, your husband could cook, and maybe you'd eat dinner out sometimes.

Now, three or four kids later, you barely have time to shop for the food, much less prepare it! Need help? Ginny and Mary Ellen have solutions and more on today's podcast.

Show Notes:

Struggling to find time to plan and prepare meals?

Use the KISS Meal Plan: Keep it Simple, Stupid

1. Remember, leftovers are your friend - Find ways to stretch one meal into two.

* If your family goes through one pound of pasta at dinner, make two. Have it for lunch the next day or for dinner two days from now. - Add some cheese and make mac and cheese, or red sauce, a bit of meat, and some pizza cheese, and make poor man's lasagna.

* If you buy a rotisserie chicken, put the carcass in a slow cooker with veggies and have soup later in the week.

2. Want to have a salad every night?

* Want the health benefits, but don't feel like preparing one? Make a big salad one night. Store it in the fridge in a covered container with a napkin or paper towel in it.

* The paper absorbs moisture, keeping the salad fresh.

3. Think simple

* Nothing is easier than baked potatoes; wash them, prick with a fork, and bake.

* Fancy potato dishes can wait until the kids get older.

4. Teaching Life Skills through Meal Prep

* At four years old, teach your oldest to set the table, and it's off your to-do list forever.

* Kids are more likely to try a food they have helped prepare.

* Teach your primary school children to:

• Scrub potatoes
• Peel and chop veggies
• Dip cutlets in eggs and bread crumbs
• You are teaching them your family's heritage

5. Food choices

Our children have an obesity problem and need to eat healthier foods. Here are some hints:

• Serve fresh, healthy food first. Let kids make a fruit or veggie tray as an appetizer.
• One menu only – this is dinner –take it or leave it.
• Have to take a taste.
• Enjoy food with your children.

6. Mealtime manners

• Children's likes and dislikes are not proper table talk; if the child doesn't like something, the correct way to express that is, "No thank you," when the food is offered.
• No eating before grace
• No reaching
• No disgusting behavior like chewing with your mouth open
• Don't hunch over food – no one is coming to steal it from you
• No screens, just conversation – 3 things you are thankful for; someone you helped today
• Ask to be excused
• Rules like placing your napkin on your lap or using utensils instead of your fingers to pick up food may seem overly formal for family meals. But today's young adults report feeling uncomfortable when they have to attend business luncheons.

7. After dinner

• Everyone clears their own place
• An older child or parent rinses and stacks
• Younger child loads the dishwasher
• A child wipes the table and fixes the chairs
• The floor is swept
• Consider setting the table for tomorrow's breakfast

Homeschooling Resources

Seton Home Study School

Seton Testing Services