In the spirit of taking every opportunity for learning, I gave my children a game over the holidays that I knew I intended to use for homeschool lessons: Wildcraft, an Herbal Adventure Game. It’s a cooperative board game that works even for non-readers.
Grandma needs huckleberries for a pie, and the players’ job is to work together to get the berries before nightfall. Along the way, we learn about 25 edible and medicinal plants as we gather those as well. We also land on trouble spots when we have to match illness or injury to the herb cards we’ve gathered. If the player doesn’t have the right card, other players can help if they have cooperation cards. As my family plays, we pause to talk about the herbs quite a bit. Movement on the board spirals around with occasional Chutes-and-Ladders-like moves across the spiral.
Along with the game, we received a videos, ebooks, and an herbal newsletter, so we’ve been working through all of these to learn basics about the plants introduced in the game.
We live near a mature golf course, and a rough area is just outside our back door. There are a lot of tall weeds and grasses around us, and deeper into the course are even more interesting plants (and animals, like deer and smaller creatures). As we venture out on daily dog walks, we have our own semi-cultivated mini wilderness to explore. Without specific knowledge of what we were seeing, the rough just looked like weeds before. Weeds, yes, but excellent weeds that have names and uses we are now learning. Walk time is time to test plant recognition and talk about uses.
We’ve also been applying our herbal knowledge as we create homemade cleaning solutions.
We haven’t come close to reading all of the materials that came with the book. Once we do, we will have a good foundation on which to build more in depth knowledge of natural health.
Wildcraft: An Herbal Adventure Game is made in USA by a small family business.
