**This post about take home game tips includes affiliate links.**
Have you quit homework and started promoting social skills at home? I have been sending Take Home Games instead of academic homework for over 5 years and everyone loves it! If you’ve been using games for homework, you may notice there are a few things that make it a little challenging:
- Games are returned with missing pieces
- It’s difficult to store the games
- Sending home the games in an organized manner
- You don’t always get the games back
That’s why I have a few quick tips for you to send home the Take Home Games so your students continue to build social skills at home. Check out these quick and easy Take Home Game tips you can implement in your classroom:
Tip #1: Make extra pieces
Before I send any game home, I make sure that I have some extra pieces on hand. I like to send home dice for families to assemble at home, so I make a few extra copies and keep them with my extra games (more about that later). That way when I’m switching out homework bags, I can switch games and quickly grab the pieces students will need.
When our games our returned, my paraprofessionals and I take a few minutes to go through the bag and make sure all of the materials are returned. Occasionally, not everything makes it back to school. For these instances, I’ve also found it helpful to make a few extra game pieces and keep them on hand so I can quickly replace them as needed. I keep these extras with my extra games so they’re easy to grab.
Tip #2: Store extra games in file bins
I have made a few sets of my monthly games so we have enough on hand for all of our students (check out more about that in tip 4). To keep everything organized, I grabbed some file boxes at my local office supply store. Then, I dropped a few hanging folders in my file box and store games in the box by month.
I grabbed 2 boxes at the office supply store and store games from August to December in one and the games for January-July in the other. We keep the bins in our prep area so we can easily grab extras to replace games in the homework bags.
Tip #3: Invest in some quality “homework bags”
I invested in some book pouches during my first year of teaching. These are a great way to get your take home games home quick and easy. I like having a separate bag for our Take Home Games because families know that is where their “homework” is located. It also keeps all of our pieces in one place.
When it’s time to send home games, I just drop a bag with the game inside with an accountability sheet for families. Then students take the bags home, play the game for a week and return it at the end of the week.
Tip #4: Have extra games on hand
It’s inevitable that families may forget to return games or that games will have quite a few missing pieces upon return. That’s why I printed out an extra set of games to keep on hand in my classroom. It allows me to have a stock of games that I can pull from if we’re short. When we’re short, I can just grab a game and toss it in the students bag without any stress.
Of course, setting up these systems for our classroom has come with a lot of time and trial and error. Are there any other snags you’re running into while using Take Home Games in your classroom? Let me know in the comments and I’ll add some more Take Home Game tips to this post.
Ready to start using Take Home Games instead of traditional homework in your classroom? I’ve come up with 60 games you can use in your classroom. All you need to do is hit print and put in a little time to prep the activities and you’ll be set to go! You can check out the games we use here.
