Why Teach History Through Games
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“This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”
Ordinary people who lived extraordinary lives are what makes history fascinating to me. My favorite history classes in college all did the same thing - they assigned “living books” - and 100% of the time the books were primary sources. For these courses, in a 10 week semester, we were assigned one primary source book to read per week for each week, to discuss, write about, and learn the personal narratives of an ordinary person who lived something extraordinary. It’s how I discovered one of my favorite books of all time - Gerda Weissmann Klein’s book, All But My Life: A Memoir. Although I did not meet her in person, I am blessed to have her in my life - even as a story.
So what does this have to do with games?
If I had not been exposed to European countries and kingdoms, their adjacent boundaries, or the Great Depression, I could not have fully appreciated Gerda’s memoir. Having mere exposure to various parts of her story in different mediums throughout my childhood years (including a trip to a concentration camp memorial) truly gave me a better glimpse into her world. Even later in my 40’s, I visited a former ghetto in Poland - and her story jumped back to life.
When we ask our children to connect to history, we need to remember that even the words of places alone can be overwhelming and distracting from the actual meat of the content, causing the actual epic story to get lost. No wonder I never liked history until college! Until then it was textbooks, facts, and words I could barely pronounce.
One big help in learning history vocabulary and geographical references is games. This is what they can do (besides the obvious problem-solving, etc.):
Familiarizes Names of Places
Geography-based games can greatly enhance familiarity with the names of cities, states, coasts, countries, and continents. This familiarity can help children better understand the context for historical trade routes, wars, and changes in kingdoms.
I love the game Ticket To Ride for this reason. Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure where players collect cards of various types of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities in various countries around the world. This game requires a high level of strategy and planning, and can be pretty competitive. There are other versions such as: Europe, Nordic countries, Asia, Germany, Heart of Africa, India, Netherlands, San Francisco, New York, and a younger child version. If you are spending time on a unit study or studying world or American history, this game can be a really great way to acclimate your child to the names and places they are studying.
Gives an Immersive History Experience
Remember The Oregon Trail computer game on our Apple and Dos computers decades ago? While barely a real immersive experience, it helped us 80’s kids in elementary school computer labs across America assume the role as a wagon leader to learn the challenges that American pioneers faced on the arduous trail to Oregon City, Oregon. While the stress of possibly starving to death did not compare to real life, it definitely clued me in to the struggles these families faced in the Wild West. This was a learning-with-play process with no textbooks or lectures needed. You can still play The Oregon Trail! Check it out here:
Keeps the Chronology Straight
As a child I couldn’t remember which came first, Noah and the flood or Moses and the Ten Commandments. I had no idea since I was taught Biblical history (and similarly a lot of world history) in chunks, with stories separated from context, doing character studies, and flipping to my favorite part of my comic book style Bible. I never really learned Biblical history in chronological order - so I completely missed the true purpose of how the Bible shares the unfolding work of God’s redemptive story for humanity over time. I missed the types and shadows of Christ. I missed the foundational events that led to future struggles in people groups. I didn’t understand why the Israelites wondered for 40 years in the desert when Moses was supposed to take them to the Promised Land. It’s because the stories were divorced from context. Enter in the Timelines series. These games can help us all keep our story straight because we can visually see the order of events and how one led to the next. Check it out here:
Solidifies Understanding
Different minds need to learn history in different ways. Games is another way to solidify information for the brains that need to interact with content.
Although Trekking The National Parks game is more geographical than historical - it provides an image of the National Parks system. If you are studying the early 1900’s or Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, or even further back with Manifest Destiny and Abraham Lincoln - this game could help present a picture of how preserving American land beauty is laced throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Strategizing to claim various national parks helps us interact with information in a different way. Check out this game and other options here:
Takes Us Places We’ve Never Been
The Fertile Crescent is kind of far away - and even further is Mesopotamia. Unless I have a time-machine, there’s no way I can get there. This year we are studying ancient world history, so we are going to dive into this game, as we learn to farm, trade, and attend Mass.
It’s Fun
It’s fun to play games with your kiddos! Games add variety, can increase interest, and can enhance your memory-making connection with each other.
Some words of advice - if you want to keep it fun and not frustrating, when you learn a new game - you learn it first (or one of your game-minded children). Then, once you have a good handle on the game, teach it to your kids. Learning a game together can sometimes be a bit rough. On numerous occasions we’ve quit a game before we even started because none of us could figure out how to play! So, to keep it fun, make sure one of you already knows how to play.
Studying how ordinary people throughout history suffered, struggled, prevailed, loved, and lost touches the depths of our hearts in exceptional ways. If we can help our children with tools and exposure to be able to eventually feel the heartache, compassion, and triumph of historical people and events, we have gifted them a future wisdom that only comes with understanding…and maybe that starts with a game.
“Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the concentration camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend.”
(For more ideas and options for popular history-based games, check out Episode 85 Show Notes.)
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