Previously posted on July 20, 2017 @Homescool.ph
Games are necessary if you have multilevel children! You definitely need something to spice up your days. But here is the challenge…. you have to think of games that are not skill or age based since the eldest child will always end up being the winner. These games may also be applied in your co-op or support groups if you lack participants. So here are some of the games and activities.
1. Obstacle Course –
You may set up in your street (if it is safe), your garden, a clubhouse in your village, in the park or even in your home (room or hallway). What can you use? A wooden plank for balancing, wheels for that jump in and out kind of run, a “tunnel” or barrel where they can crawl through, a stool to go around, a jump rope to maybe do 3-4 jumps and a flag to pick up. You may even put a basin of water to jump over. Be creative.
2. Relays
- Sack race or pillowcase race
- Going to the market
- Spoon with a Ping pong ball relay
- Putting straws on several soft drink bottles or juice pitchers
- Two legged where you tie two pairs of legs (or calves) on the ankle part with a long scarf
- Wheelbarrow game
- Google for more ideas!
3. Treasure Hunt
This may need some preparation! But it will be worth it indeed. You may use the plots of the books of your read-aloud, your children’s readers in describing clues and all! Use adjectives, riddles, or figurative language in giving clues. You may provide word games like WORD FIND, unscramble, word play or even search for letters and make them into a word as you provide clues for the treasure hunt.
4. Brown Bag of Things that Begin with _.
This is usually for the toddler-preschooler kids where you let them trace a letter (upper and lowercase) on a big brown bag and you let them find items around the house that begin with the sound that letter makes. For instance, for letter Aa, they can find apple, arrow, airplane, avocado, airplane, ant, apron. You can also reverse this by putting things ahead in the bag and letting the kids guess what are inside the bag.
5. Let’s Pretend
I wanted to teach the kids empathy and sensitivity. I think we were reading “Helen Keller” and so I was trying to help them realize what it means to be blind. You can for 10 minutes, blindfold all the children and try to go about your plans for the day for 10-15 minutes without the sense of sight. We took this activity further and wrote down a few of the senses and abilities in pieces of paper: ability to talk, to walk, to use hands and to see. We then drew lots and pretended what we drew (disability) for half an hour. We tried to communicate by writing, move by inching with our bottoms, etc. We did this before bedtime. Though there were times we laughed as we struggled with our “assigned” abilities, it allowed us to think through the activity and imagine what it would be like if we had this concern, not for half an hour in a simulated and timed game, but really for life! We then talked about the topic of “persons with disability” and what we can do to help or assist them.
Or you can just do dramatization! If you read a lot of stories, why not assign roles and just let the script flow and evolve?
Or be surgeons for the day!
One of my most favorite times was acting like wandering nomads with the children. We all pretended to live like our “hunting and gathering” ancestors and just played out various scenarios and acted them all out. ” Ok, it’s your turn to keep watch for wild animals and to make sure the fire is burning while we get some sleep, okay?” packed with our tents and all our belongings tied in a blanket with a stick!
If you have helpers, you can decide for one meal or even half a day to reverse roles too! Let the children serve their helpers, let the children do some of the chores usually done by your helpers.
6. Sports
With 4 kids, we were able to play a whole lot of badminton, volleyball, swimming relays too. We even did a mini “Olympics” in line with our History lesson on the first Olympics, our Math lesson on measurement and Science lesson on speed and distance.
There are so many possibilities in terms of activities and games with multilevel kids! So instead of saying, “Oh my, there are so many children to look after and teach!”, just embrace this season and say, “Oh how exciting, we can do so many games and activities together, I don’t even know where to start!”,,,,,,,, let me make one suggestion, which all our children learned and mastered two weeks ago, teach them mahjong! hahahha… and yes, with all the culture and tradition that come with playing this game. Our kids loved it and couldn’t stop playing!
And if you need help with teaching and bonding and yes, homeschooling multilevel children, we are having our 4th run! First was Alabang, then Makati and Quezon City and finally in Ortigas Center!
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17
Donna P. Simpao, M.D. 