My seventh grade son worked hard and finished his math curriculum in April. I did not want to start him on a new one yet or give him work that made him feel like his hard work just meant that he had to do even more math. However, I did want to keep his skills fresh in his mind. I was very excited to see if Middle School Math Games by The Critical Thinking Co. might be just what I needed: a chance to review skills while having fun with games.

We received the digital version of this book, which allowed us to print out the games as needed and print out extra copies of the score sheets for those games that used score sheets.  There are 16 different games included in Middle School Math Games and each game also includes several different variations.

When we first reviewed this book, it had been my hope that my son could play these games either independently or with his slightly younger sister who is finishing fifth grade.  However, most of the games really required at least two people to play them and the math required was too difficult for my daughter in many cases (which is very understandable since it is supposed to be middle school level). Therefore, either I helped my daughter a bit or I would play with my son.

I loved that the games really reinforced the math concepts. I think games are a great way to reinforce learning but sometimes educational games can be mostly fun and very little learning. These games were very tied to the math concepts. For example, one of our favorite games was “What Are My Coordinates?”This game was very similar to a popular board game from my childhood where you tried to guess the location of ships using coordinates. Instead of ships, you were guessing at the location of quadrilaterals with the help of area and perimeter. This was a great review of coordinate planes, area, perimeter, and various quadrilaterals.

Another game that they enjoyed was, “Lets Sum Up: Odd or Even? Positive or Negative?” This game used dice and an activity sheet to work on positive and negative numbers, odd and even number concepts as well as critical thinking skills. The children decided on various operations to do with the numbers rolled, on the dice, in order to try and achieve a specific result.  If you wanted to make that game more challenging you could add squaring and square roots as possible operations. My two oldest children played this together but my daughter needed a lot of support.

Another game was number bingo, not identifying numbers but solving equations and then locating that number on their bingo boards. There were several different sheets of equations so that you could play multiple times. They also did a great job of allowing as many students as needed to play this game by having blank bingo cards with the answers down at the bottom as a list of numbers. Before the game, students could each write the numbers on their cards in whatever order they chose.

There were games that had students trying to guess the operation, make a certain number with a given set of numbers using any operations they chose, ordering decimals, working with prime numbers, and even reviewing math vocabulary.

The games were generally very ‘print and go’ making them easy to set up. The few supplies that were required were basic supplies like graph paper, dice, and index cards. In addition to basic math skills, the games did a good job of having the students apply those skills using their critical thinking and not just do basic computation.

We felt like this book had a lot of great games and ideas but it was challenging to make it fit into a one middle schooler homeschool. With the games generally needing at least two players the parent needs to plan to play with the child or have another middle school or above student who can also participate. I think it would be a perfect fit for someone who was teaching at a co-op or had two students in middle school or above.

In addition to this Middle School Math Games book, the Review Crew has reviewed a variety of wonderful resources by The Critical Thinking Co. and I invite you to use the link below to take at look at all of the different options. The Critical Thinking Co has also been generous enough to offer my readers Free Shipping and 15% off any order through 12/31/2019. I encourage you to go to the website and take a look at all of their wonderful products. You can also check out the review I did last year of their Critical Thinking Detective: Vocabulary book.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

I debated for a while before deciding to review the Ancient Rome Online Unit Study from Techie Homeschool Mom. It looked like an amazing program but our plates were full and I didn’t know if I was up to taking on planning for another program. Thankfully, I decided to give it a try and figured out that I didn’t have to take on planning. It was all laid out and ready to go without any additional work on my part! My fifth and seventh graders were able to work together and begin working their way through the unit study.

*Some of the links in my posts may be affiliate links see below for more information. *

Once I had them logged in to the program, it was very easy for them to navigate. They could complete each section, mark it complete and move on to the next section. Some of the sections had reading for them to complete online, some had activities and recipes, and others had short videos for them to watch. She also included a book club where they could choose a book and then throughout the study they had a chance to answer questions in a comment thread about this book. This gave them the opportunity to read what other students thought about the book.

We are almost half way through the unit study and the only thing that I purchased was a book selection for my son. The activities and recipes are fun and use mostly common household items. For example, they worked on a model of the Parthenon that used popsicle sticks, glue, newspaper, and a balloon.  They also made a sun dial using a print out from the website, a compass and tape.  I think my son’s favorite activity so far was the Roman honey cake. This was a simple recipe that only called for honey, flour, and eggs. It tasted delicious (especially topped with a little fresh whipping cream).

Roman Honey Coake

Whipped cream might not be historically accurate but it was yummy!

Sun Dial

Each section took my students about 15 or 20 minutes to complete unless it was an activity like the Roman honey cake that required extra time.  They were able to work together to complete it, which was a really benefit in my opinion. It saved us time and made it more fun for them. They could complete one section a day or if we had more time that day they could keep working. I really appreciated that it was laid out in such a way as to give us a lot of flexibility. We used it as a supplement to our studies and therefore, did several sections each week. It could also be done in a single week if you made it the focus of your studies that week. Another alternative might be to spend one day a week focused on the study.

This particular study focused on Ancient Rome and included a variety of sub-topics. They started with an introduction, learned about Roman mythology, daily life, architecture, entertainment, Roman military and the Roman language. They are excited about the final section, movie night. She includes a variety of suggestions for movies that feature Ancient Rome.

Techie Homeschool Mom has a variety of studies of historical topics, science, and even artists. These studies are easy to complete either independently or as a family. Once you have purchased them you have them forever, so there is no time limit in getting them finished. Now that I know how easy they are to complete and how much my children enjoy them, I am looking forward to including more of these studies in our home school.  Be sure to check out the website to see which studies might be beneficial to your students and check out the other Crew reviews.

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

Resource Library 

This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.