One of my goals for the upcoming school year is to convert Fridays to a game day. We’ll still be playing learning, but it won’t seem like it because we’re playing games, that’s the whole theory behind gameschooling.
(there are affiliate links in here, and I received Adventures in Reading with ZigZagZebra for free)
When I was given the opportunity to review Adventures in Reading with ZigZag Zebra for All About Learning Press, I jumped at it.
What is Adventures in Reading with ZigZag Zebra?
If you’re familiar with file folder games or Take It To Your Seat Games from Evan-Moor, you’re familiar with this concept.
The games come bound in a book, the pages are perforated so you can tear them out and glue them into a file folder if you choose to (I’m storing it differently, you’ll see below).
Now, I hate cutting things out, my wrists hurt after a while of cutting, so I set my kids loose on it. This does mean they’re not cut out perfectly.
We’ve only played the first half or so of them, but I think these will easily be added into our rotation of games, and extra bonus, they’re not just limited to reading.
{I have to admit, I don’t think this was in the creator’s minds when they did it, but I looked at it and saw easy adaption to other topics}
A quick look at the games we’ve played so far
Apples for Ziggy– Super simple and easy to play, you pick 5 apples off the tree and if they’re vowels you keep them.
My kids loved this because it’s a no brainer for them. No thinking involved because they’ve got it down flat. Many requests to play again.
Ziggy at the Market– Ziggy is going shopping and he can only buy things if he answers questions correctly. My kids loved the variety of things to buy. Princess bought all the shoes and the boys bought a little of everything. Including the top hat Superman tried to wear.
In case you’re wondering it didn’t fit.
Now in the instructions, you’re supposed to review phonograms, but my kids need more review of word cards. I’ve noticed they’re starting to slack on words they knew before, so I switched it to word cards.
And that worked just fine.
Treasure Hunt with Ziggy– You pull 3 tiles and see if it’s possible to make a word with that combination of color tiles. Remember with All About Learning Tiles vowels are red and consonants are blue.
It was a great review for my kids and got them thinking of examples of words with two vowels in a 3 letter word.
Eventually, I started challenging them to think up words to go with the tiles they pulled. They LOVED that.
I’m sure I will have many more posts about these games as we work our way through them. Especially if I keep to my plan of only games on Friday.
And, if you’re wondering how I store my games, here you go. The board is folded in half and put in the mini-manilla envelope along with the pieces. They all store very nicely in my box for All About Reading Level 1 (post coming up with how I organize it to work for me).
More Reading Adventures
This sounds like fun – if only my kids had any interest in games! They aren't very into structured activities, outside of school, at least.
We're reviewing this too. I love your idea of making Friday game day. We own Rightstart Games book and I never have time to go through it and have them play the games in the book. A Friday games day would build that into the schedule. We also practice other skills than some of the games prescribe. It's easy to tweak a game to practice reading a word card or to practice blending etc. I love the file folder games so far.
I'm going to have to look up Rightstart Games, it sounds interesting.
I used to teach 8th grade English and every Friday was game day in my class. It always amazed me that the 13 and 14 year old kids didn't realize that the games were educational! Call it a game, and they were excited. I taught in the inner city and had some tough kids, but they loved Fridays in my class. Anyway, this game sounds fun!
hi i just purchased the ziggy game used… how ever 2 of the 9 games are missing parts… and instructions. apples for ziggy and tresure hunt . would it be too much to ask for a picture of the how to play sheet please… i can figure out the rest. thanks
I gave my game away several years ago because my kids outgrew it so I can’t give you a picture of it, but you might try emailing the company to see if they have the information you need.