 Hey everybody, welcome to While That's Way. I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be all about games for middle schoolers. I'm not really sure how it happened. It seems like just yesterday I was homeschooling a preschooler and now somehow I am going to be homeschooling a middle schooler. So lately I have really been thinking about all things middle school, especially games, since they are such a huge part of our homeschool. So I thought that in case you are homeschooling a middle schooler too, I would share some of the games that either have come off our game shelves that we already love that are perfect for middle school ages, so 10 plus, or some of the games that I have purchased with the intention of using them through the middle school years. Now don't worry, there will be a back to school haul video coming soon and that will share all of the new resources that I've purchased for the middle school years or at least for sixth grade, which is what Emily will be entering in this coming school year. But for now, I really wanted to get these games out there for those of you who are planning for the new school year for middle schoolers. So promise the homeschool resource video is coming. It will be there really, really soon. It's just a lot of stuff and it's gonna be kind of big. So let's get through this one first. Now I decided since math seems to be the one subject that us homeschool moms worry about the most, that that's where we would start. So first up, we have Samoku. So it plays kind of similar to Sudoku. It has little tiles and it is for ages nine up. It's really fun. Let's see, we also have Target. Now technically this is an eight up game, but I think because you can use all different order of, or all the different operations and you can do multiple different things that it is still really good for older kids. We started playing it last year and we definitely have years left with it. Same thing for AdsMundi because it uses all four operations. I think this one can be used for a while. It is ages nine up. We have a Bilabi's Pizza, which has quite a bit to do with fractions. This one also is ages nine up. Prime Climb is ages 10 up. It's one that can use all orders of operation and different mathematical equations and you can create all kinds of different things. Prime numbers and so it is a really, really great game for older kids, but you could kind of modify it for younger kids too if you have a large age range. Math Rush two and three. Now there is three different volumes of this. One would be addition and subtraction, so that'd be great for younger kids. Two is multiplication and exponents and then three is fractions, decimals and percentages as well as division. So depending on where your kid is, you could have something for all of them. Let's see. I don't even know if these have ages. They do. Eight up for volume two and 10 up for volume three. Again, like I said, volume one is addition and subtraction, so if you have younger kids, maybe you wanna grab all three of them, but definitely the volume three. And then last, we have Math Tacto. Now this one seems kind of pricey when you look it up for Tic Tac Toe, especially if you're purchasing it with your older kids of mine. But if you have younger kids, this can last you forever because you have beginner, intermediate and advanced. So beginner is addition and subtraction, intermediate is multiplication and advanced is advanced mental math. So I did actually purchase this specifically for the advanced. I wished I had had it sooner and I had purchased it for the younger ages, but I have nieces and nephews who will benefit once Emily is done with it. So I will, let's see. Beginner is ages eight plus, intermediate is ages 10 plus, and advanced is ages 12 plus. And what's even great about it is that all ages can play at the same time. So if you do have multiple kids in different stages of math, you can have all of them playing the Math Tacto as one lesson at their individual levels. Okay, for language arts or English and language arts, we have Tappel, which is really for ages eight plus, but it's a speed game. So Emily was not necessarily ready for that at eight. So I feel like she is now. We are a little bit more on equal so we can play speed games and be kind of more evenly matched, whereas before it wasn't fair to her. So I decided this was a great one. We also have a little wordy. This is ages 10 plus. It is similar to kind of a hangman type of thing. You basically both get to choose words and then you're trying to guess the other one's words. It is a lot of fun. It's a two player game, finding two player games that work well as two player games. For games going is not always easy and this is a great one. Math Libs the game, this is, let's see, ages 10 plus. Now heads up if you are an only child family, this is a three plus player game so you will have to have somebody play along with you guys. But if your kids already love doing Math Libs, this game is perfect for them. We have word around, which is a super fun speedy game. This is ages 10 plus. I will say that's can be kind of difficult. It's definitely a word game as well as critical thinking. You're basically trying to unravel the word that you are seeing in the circle but it would be whatever color. So you would know blue and you would be trying to find a word on the blue kind of ring. It is a lot of fun. Emily and I love it. And I just found out that there is a new Disney version of this that was just released too, which by the way, add to cart for me. Okay, listography the game. This is, let's see, ages 12 up. This is another one that is three to six players so for you only child homeschoolers make sure you know that going in. But it is kind of a fun game of trying to make a list of all of the things about a specific category and see who can do it the most. So I thought it would be really, really fun to sneak in a little bit of handwriting as well as vocabulary. All right, splurt. This is ages 10 plus. Basically it is you just trying to name something really, really fast. So you get like a category card and then a letter card. So in this instance, it's a song that ends in E and you whoever can, you know, blurt it out first is the winner of that one. And then last, we have metaphor dice. This is ages 13 up. Basically you roll a metaphor and then you explore, you know, one that speaks to you. Figurative language is not always easy and only as a very, very literal kid. So I'm always looking for fun ways to do more figurative language. So I think this is gonna be a really, really fun game for that. Okay, for science, we have organ attack. This is 10 up. It's perfect for your human body unit study if you're doing one. We have planted. This is for ages 10 up as well. Again, if you're studying any kind of plants or botany, this would be perfect for that. Periodic, which is a game having to do with the periodic table and elements. This one is suggested for ages 10 up. And then chemistry flux. Now technically flux is ages eight up, but I feel like some of the more advanced ones are at least advanced topics like the chemistry, the anatomy, 10 up is a better range for that. And some of the rules can change frequently when you're playing. So I could see this being a good one for a lot of ages, but specifically middle school. So again, this is chemistry, but there's a human body. There's nature. There's some version of space. I think it's called astronomy maybe. Tons of different ones. If you're doing a unit study, look and see if there's a flux on that topic. For geography and history, we have trekking the world. This is ages 10 up. You guys, these games are so beautiful. I absolutely love them. We also have trekking the national parks. Again, ages 10 up. And from the same creators, we have trekking through history. This one as well as ages 10 up. And we have American trivia. Now this one is ages 14 up. So I'm going to try it with Emily and see if it will work. If not, we'll hold onto it for seventh and eighth grade. Either way, it would be a great one for your middle schoolers. And then last, I have the timeline games. Now these are eight plus obviously, but I think that these can work even up into high school probably because you're just studying the timeline. You're using a game to do a timeline. You're putting historical events or inventions or, oh, I'm going to drop them. Yeah, historical events, inventions or classic. You're just putting them in order based off of history. So depending on what you're studying or how much history you've studied or how much you want to practice, you can play these no matter what. You could probably even go through them and pull a specific set of cards out to do a shorter period of time if you needed to for younger kids or if you were studying a specific time period in your home school. These are staples for history as far as I'm concerned. They're small, they're portable, they're amazing. And for logic or critical thinking, we have Mastermind. This is ages eight plus, but we have played the Mastermind kids forever now and this one kind of takes it up a notch. So I figured if we've been playing the kids, taking it up a notch would be great for middle school. So that's what we're going to do there. Genius star, this one also is for eight plus, but what I love about it is that it can be one player or two players. So she can play by herself and it can be a single player game or I can play with her. And I'm always looking for more games that do this where she can kind of play by herself and get really good at it. And then I can challenge her and we can play head to head. So that was a win. Hive, we have been playing and love this. It is a two player game. It is kind of an advanced or off the board type of chess because you're moving, but a lot of the pieces have specific movements like chess. We love it. We just kind of fell in love with it last year. So I'm excited to continue to get better at it and play this through middle school. And then an escape and solve mystery from clue. These are 10 plus. There are multiple different ones. This seemed like it would be a really fun thing to do as a family activity, especially now that she's getting a little older and almost too cool for us. I'm always kind of looking for ways to bring us back together and this seemed like a good one. And last but certainly not least, we have a few adjust for fun games to play with your middle schoolers. The first one I have here is Cover Your Kingdom. It is for ages nine up and it is so much fun, especially if your middle schoolers love magical creatures. And then we have, sorry, I'm gonna try, it's really loud, code name pictures. Any of the code names are fun in my opinion. We had the duet for a while because then me and Emily can play just against each other. We have pictures now. There's a Disney version. We've had many of them. This is ages 10 plus. It is a lot of fun. Seriously, sorry, that one's kind of loud. Castle Panic, this is another one that is ages 10 plus. It is a lot of fun too. And it also can be played with just one player and up to six players. So I think that's kind of cool that she can even play it by herself. And it is a cooperative game. And I think it is sometimes kind of hard to find cooperative games for older kids. This is one of our absolute favorites. And then we have Mystic Market. This is for ages 10 plus. And it is another one that looks super fun. Now I would absolutely love it if you would share some of your favorite games for your middle schoolers in the comments down below because I'm always looking for great games to add to our game shelves.