Educational Games for Middle School Students

Making Learning Fun for Middle School Students

Middle school students learn a lot of new material every day at school. You can help reinforce the skills and concepts that your child is learning through educational games. When you make education entertaining and interactive, students will be excited to learn because they will want to participate in the fun. Any subject can be turned into a game that middle school students will enjoy; use the following activities as models.

Family Journal

Your middle schooler is probably very busy with school, sports and a social life. This activity will help improve your child's writing and communication skills. Get a notebook and tell your child that this is a place to express his thoughts and feelings. Using this journal, you and your child will write journal entries to each other once a week. This is also a good way to have conversations about topics that he (or you) may feel uncomfortable discussing face-to-face.

Truth and Lies

This is a fun game that will teach your child research skills and help her gain knowledge about presidents of the United States. You will need at least three players for this game. Select one a person to be the 'liar'. Then, pick a president and give each player (including the 'liar') five minutes to go online and do as much research as possible (be sure to have the players take notes on their research).

At the end of the five minutes, the 'liar' will state two truths and one lie about that president. Based on their research, the other players will have to guess which statement is untrue. The player that detects the lie the quickest gets a point and becomes the next 'liar'. Keep playing for about 20 minutes. The person with the most points is the winner.

Absorption

Safety note: This experiment should not be conducted with children who have asthma or other respiratory problems. If kids accidentally inhale sodium polyacrylate during this activity the chemical powder could irritate sensitive nasal or bronchial membranes.

This activity will teach your child about how and why diapers are able to absorb moisture. You will need:

• One diaper
• One large zip-lock bag
• One small plastic cup
• Measuring spoons
• Scissors
• Safety goggles

Put safety goggles on, and then cut into the middle of the diaper. Next, remove the material that looks like cotton and put it into the zip-lock bag. Shake the bag for a few minutes. You will eventually see a white, powder-like material on the bottom of the bag. Remove the cotton from the bag and get pour the powder into a plastic cup. When enough water is added to the powder, it will become a gel. Have your child guess how many tablespoons of water is needed for the powder to turn into gel.

Add one tablespoon of water at a time and observe what happens. Explain that this powder is a polymer (a long chain of molecules) called sodium polyacrylate. These super absorbent polymers get bigger when water is added to them because the molecules in the polymer hang onto the water, much like a sponge.