Evolution of a Gameschooling Mom

October 2025

Sarah S. Johnson, MSEd

My husband and I are both former public school teachers. So when we decided to take our gifted daughter out of public school and homeschool her, it was not a decision we came to quickly or easily. I wasn’t entirely sure what homeschooling would look like for us, but I pictured something along the lines of school… just at home. We weren’t necessarily against that model (yet). We just knew our daughter’s needs could most likely be better met with an individualized plan tailored to her. Who wouldn’t benefit from that? It felt like a gift that I could give to her and our family. Not long after we started homeschooling, it became clear that a full day of traditional school academics was not a good fit for our daughter. I needed to be reminded that there are many kinds of learners, and not all succeed with orthodox methods.

Naturally, we also wanted our daughter to still have the opportunity to make friends and socialize with kids around her age. So, we joined a homeschool co-op. It seemed like a good way for us to connect with and acquire guidance from more experienced families in the homeschool community. Little did I know that it would be a life-changing decision for us. It was around this same time that I was introduced to the concept of “gameschooling”. At first, I really thought that was just a cute term made up by our friends at co-op. I decided to Google it one day and was surprised to find it had a definition. 

“Gameschooling is a term whose origin cannot be traced, but it has been around for a while. In the homeschool community, gameschooling means to use tabletop gaming (board games and card games) in an intentional way, as part of your personal homeschool culture and educational philosophy.”¹

The day I found out that gameschooling wasn’t just a local thing was truly enlightening, but I didn’t really need to go far to learn more. I had an endless source of knowledge about gameschooling from a wonderful co-op friend. She had already been gameschooling for over 10 years at that point and had been a part of the tabletop community for much longer. She had played and reviewed more board games than I even knew existed. I began constantly peppering her with questions like, “What games do you think you would recommend to improve writing skills?” and “Do you know of good ones for math skills too?” I sought her out for information on pretty much any subject my daughter didn’t want to learn in a traditional way. And thus began our gameschooling journey.

I believe it all started with the game “Snake Oil”. My daughter gravitated most to word games and games that required the players to come up with the most imaginative or outlandish stories. It was amazing to watch her build skills while having so much fun. Soon enough, we were setting aside whole days of the week just for gameschooling or using it as motivation to finish something she was getting a little bit bored with. My son was getting old enough to have his own gameschooling adventures, even though he wasn’t being formally schooled yet. We were building quite a collection of games that had to be sorted by subject or skill focus, to keep everything organized and accessible. 

Gameschooling became such a reliable teaching method for us that I began writing games into our curriculum. The more I allowed us to move away from traditional methods, the more we were able to relax and enjoy the educational journey. Curriculum planning became a lot more enjoyable as well. My favorite parts of curriculum planning were (and still are) creativity, collaboration, and individualization. Individualization was one of the main reasons we started and continued homeschooling. Over time, I have found that everyone is more engaged when I incorporate creativity and collaboration. Having gameschooling in our curriculum allowed for all three features. Gameschooling can also be beneficial in creating curriculum & lesson plans to develop a wide variety of academic skills.² We were practicing valuable math skills like problem solving, making equations, multi-step problems, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with “Math Dice”, “Qwixx”, and “Sleeping Queens”. Favorites for Language Arts included “Snake Oil”, of course, for vocabulary, creative storytelling, and persuasive writing skills; “A Little Wordy” for vocabulary, spelling, and logic; and “How I Survived” for creative storytelling, persuasive writing skills, and problem solving. My son’s favorite preschool games helped him develop important skills, too. He was learning to read common words with “Zingo”, practicing motor skills with “I Can Do That! (Marvel Edition)” and “Monkey Around”, and cooperating with others to achieve a goal through playing “Race to the Treasure.” The best part was the kids didn’t think it was difficult or boring or “schooly”. It was just fun, and family bonding time too. 

Gameschooling wasn’t just something we did at home, though. We were building community at our co-op with regular gameschooling class periods and Game Day events. Those Game Day community-building opportunities also doubled as a sort of “social schooling.” The kids were learning important social skills through gaming, such as: the importance of following instructions, taking turns, as well as having patience when it’s not your turn, working cooperatively, learning to win or lose with grace, learning to adapt to the needs of others, learning to strategize (think a few moves ahead), learning to pivot and change their plan, if needed, without a meltdown.^3,4 That last one is especially hard for younger and neurodivergent students. A lot of repeated practice is needed before that becomes second nature. Learning to win and lose with grace is also an arduous skill to develop. Each skill comes with a unique set of challenges that vary for each child and require multiple sessions to master. That was never really a problem for the gameschooling moms, though. We were ready to meet any challenge head-on with a game or three. One or all of us usually have a suggestion for how to help a student with a particular skill. 

Not long after, I discovered we could supplement our learning on very specific topics, even in subjects my kids were already enjoying learning about in traditional ways. I learned about games like “Wingspan,” which we used for an ornithology unit, and “Trekking,” which was used for a unit about the U.S. National Parks. We also did an entire unit on world culture and foods. We took a trip around the world through board games, documentaries, and foods from five regions. 

We went on homeschooling and gameschooling happily for several years, until our circumstances shifted dramatically. Life is constantly evolving, and ours was no exception, but sometimes life’s changes require more than just small adjustments. My daughter was presenting with more severe symptoms that we would soon learn were a complex diagnosis of depression, anxiety, and ADHD. She was beginning to deal with a whole lot more challenges (thanks to adolescence) that were, not surprisingly, affecting her in every way. It had also become clear that my son needed a specific diagnosis and some new strategies. The information we received was basically what I expected. Although he was diagnosed similarly to his sister, with anxiety and ADHD, his educational and therapeutic needs were quite different. For both kids, their schooling needed to evolve with them, for them. I knew, through collaboration with other moms, experience with students, and my own research, that board games are beneficial for neurodivergent brains because they support focus and executive functioning. The co-op gameschooling moms, once again, came through with stellar recommendations for games that fit our new set of needs. Some of our favorites, to this day, remain the “1-minute to teach” collection from AllPlay. These stand out as neurodivergent-friendly games for several reasons. There are not a lot of directions and rules to pay attention to and retain; the fast pace (and often simultaneous play), along with fun themes, keep players engaged; the quick play time means you can play more than once or move on to something else easily, and the beginner-friendly nature makes them widely accessible to a variety of players. Quick and easy to learn doesn’t mean they would get bored with playing in this case. There is plenty of depth and strategy built in to keep players coming back. For example, “Sequoia” and “Mountain Goats” have become instant favorites in the mixed groups that I have gamed with (and in my family). Mixed groups, meaning: neurodivergent and neurotypical brains, mixed age groups, mixed ability levels, as well as gamers and non-gamers. Even reluctant gamers and players with short attention spans can be brought to the table with these games. 

Almost at the same time, and probably despite my efforts, my daughter was on her own path of our gameschooling journey. She was evolving individually into someone who didn’t really want to play board games with her family much anymore. She had discovered a new tabletop gaming love. TTRPGs.

TTRPGs offered everything my daughter wanted in her young adolescent life—the imaginative, outlandish, unpredictable fantasy stories she had always loved, the creativity and individuality of being whoever she wanted to be “in game,” and, most of all, her friends were there. She could escape all the things that were currently stressing her out in the real world while holding on to some of the comforts that she was already familiar with.⁵ Of course, I didn’t realize any of that then. I knew very little about TTRPGs and what they had to offer. At the time, I saw that she wanted to hang out with her friends, and she didn’t really like board games anymore. I can admit that my view of the situation was a bit narrow and colored by the feeling that my daughter had chosen TTRPGs over family games. I was more than a little reluctant to branch out in my tabletop gaming experiences. I loved board games and card games. After years of carefully cultivating our collection and trying out a variety of game mechanics, I had narrowed down the categories and specific mechanics that we enjoyed (and benefited from) the most. I was settled in that sweet, comfortable spot of knowing. It was nice and familiar, and yet, not at all boring. We were always finding new games that fit nicely into our repertoire. My daughter was ready for a new era. I was not. Oh yeah, and by the way, she had pulled her little brother into the D&D world, and he was loving it too. Luckily, he still loved board games.

After a brief pout, I had to take a healthy spoonful of my own medicine. A pretty frequently used phrase around our house is “modify and adjust.” This is what I would advise my kids to do in this situation, and that’s exactly what I needed to do. I knew what was required of me. It was important for me to embrace this new genre of tabletop gaming that my kids loved so much. At the very least, I had to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. You can probably already see where this is going. I played. I liked it. I found out that the reasons I thought I wouldn’t like it were mostly unfounded. I learned more. I liked it more. I found people who knew a lot more than I did and asked questions. I asked my daughter a lot of questions, too. She was thrilled. We had some great conversations about the characters she and her friends had created. She helped me create my own character. I asked more questions. I had conversations with my daughter’s friends about their characters and the adventures they’d had. I found out how much there is to love about TTRPGs. 

Through this process, I met a few really wonderful local Dungeon Masters. I decided this was something I needed to learn how to do. Our co-op was full of kids who wanted to play but didn’t want to DM. I went out on a limb and I asked a DM to take me on as his apprentice. I had no reason to be apprehensive. He agreed without hesitation. He is my daughter’s regular DM at our local library. We had had a few friendly conversations, but that was the extent of our interactions up to that point. I honestly can’t say enough good things about him and all the DMs I met at our library. I immediately saw why my daughter felt welcome in their community. He allowed me to sit in and ask endless questions about DMing during four different D&D sessions. He has spent countless Saturdays at the library (and hours preparing in advance) patiently DMing with groups of teens (several of whom are neurodivergent), and they all leave at the end of the day, enthusiastically recounting the day’s adventures. As I witnessed imagination, creativity, freedom, humor, ingenuity, critical thinking, collaboration, reckless abandon, and social bonding, I was forming plans to make this work at our weekly co-op. I could see clearly now that this type of experience was just too valuable to pass up. Shortly after that, my first source of inspiration hit.

Being a homeschooling mom for eight years, a public school teacher before that, and a teacher’s aide before that, I often have wild curriculum planning epiphanies out of nowhere when I find content that is not only amazing but also educational. I determined that if used properly, a D&D campaign could be an engaging, well-rounded homeschooling, nay, gameschooling unit study. This could really be something. I was a little sad to find out this was not an original idea, but also relieved because it meant I could find resources on the topic. I had found my newest passion project. TTRPGs and learning to DM had handed me another gift —a way to connect not only with my own kids and my co-op students, but also to connect the things I love to do. Although I will never give up advocating for gameschooling through board games, I am building a new bridge between creative curriculum planning and gameschooling with TTRPGs. You can take a look at one example in a unit study that I am currently working on, based on Homer’s Odyssey and Epic: The Musical by Jorge Rivera Herrans.

Works Cited

¹ Timms, Cat. “The Ultimate Guide to Gameschooling.” The Mulberry Journal, 2017, https://themulberryjournal.com/writing-collective/family-life/ultimate-guide-gameschooling

² O’Neill, Daniela K. and Paige E. Holmes. “The Power of Board Games for Multidomain Learning in Young Children.” The Strong’s American Journal of Play, v14, n1. 2022, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1357958.pdf

³ Zander, Megan. “The Surprising Benefits Your Kids Get From Playing Board Games.” Scholastic Online, 2019, https://www.scholastic.com/parents/kids-activities-and-printables/activities-for-kids/arts-and-craft-ideas/benefits-board-games.html

⁴ Stathakis, Rebekah. “Five Reasons to Use Games in the Classroom.” Education World through Eye on Education, 2013,  https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/reasons-to-play-games-in-the-classroom.shtml

⁵ Cross, Liam,  and Gray Atherton. “How Games Foster Social Connection.” Autism Research Institute, https://autism.org/how-games-can-help-teach-social-skills/

More Resources For Tabletop Gaming With Kids

Atherton, Gray, Emily Dawson, and Liam Cross.  “‘We’ve all come together’: A board game intervention for children and adults with autism and other developmental disabilities.’” University of Plymouth, 2024, https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1733&context=psy-research

“Critical Core invites children to enter a shared world of fantasy and social problem solving to build social confidence, communication, and collaboration skills, develop frustration tolerance, emotional resilience, and caring for others, all while rolling dice and having fun. Critical Core combines modern developmental therapies with the mechanics of tabletop role-playing games to help kids connect with their families, their friends, and the world around them.” https://www.criticalcore.org/

“This site is here to share the enjoyment and educational value of playing role-playing games in academic settings.” The whole site is valuable, but this link points to their resources page, which has quite a few recommendations worth checking out. https://rpgclassroom.com/resources/

“This site covers everything from indie tabletop RPGs to D&D recommendations, tips and tricks, podcasts, reviews, creator interviews, crafts, and more, so you can jump in and have fun playing these awesome games with your kids or make a wonderful game to share with the world!” https://www.ttrpgkids.com/