Home School Product Reviews

Mom, Dad, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, college-age and grade-school kids all playing together and having a great time – that’s Bananagrams! I love that the kids are practicing spelling skills and thinking skills and learning new vocabulary almost as much as I love the family bonding. The games are quick and there’s no need to keep score. A homeschooling friend brought this very portable game over one day to play with us. We all loved it so much, we bought one for Grandma for Christmas. She convinced two of her sisters to get their own. My sister-in-law played with us and had to go get herself one. My two college-age sons each have their own. We are definitely a Bananagrams family!

Laura

Kenner, LA

The following is reposted from the Home with the Boys blog.

Recently, I have been trying to make more time to sit down and play with the boys. Of course, finding something that both of them like to play – other than trains – can be difficult.
At the MOPS convention I went to a month ago, one of the sessions challenged us to carve out one-on-one play time with each child at least once during the week. Doesn’t sound that difficult, but the week fills up fast!
The first time I did this with Jeremiah, his response was amazing – he was so thrilled and couldn’t wait for more time with just Mommy. I was really touched and definitely wanted to do more.

So I was very excited when this product showed up on our door step…

Rapelli (by Timberdoodle) is a game that teaches color-matching, counting and even a little early strategy – although I think that last one was lost on my three-year-old!

Here are the game instructions:
The 18 colorful caterpillars are blissfully munching their way through the bamboo tube. Roll the first die to determine the color of the caterpillar you need to move. Then roll the direction die and count the number of segments the caterpillar moves in or out of the bamboo.

Jeremiah was immediately captivated by the bright colors when I pulled it out of the box. Add to that the cute little caterpillars and he was ready to play!
At first, he just wanted to play with the caterpillars so I had to keep us on track with rolling the dice, taking turns, etc. But even after one game, he was really starting to get the concept.

The game is listed for ages 4 and up and I would have to agree with that age range. while Jeremiah enjoys it and gets most of the concepts, the strategy part is lost on him for the most part and he needs lots of help with addition and subtraction aspects.

But even with these limitations, he LOVES this game. He asks to play it often. He even wanted to play it when his friend of the same age was over last week. And he was “teaching” the friend how to play! It was so cute!

Now for what I love about Rapelli…

It is made out of quality materials. It is solid, natural and nice to look at it. And it doesn’t make any noise
It is actually fun to play even as an adult because of the strategy involved. My husband and I have both played it with Jeremiah now and enjoyed ourselves. Maybe we’ll pull it out one of these days and take on each other!
And most importantly, it is giving me another way to have quality learning time with Jeremiah disguised as fun! I love being sneaky like that!
Rapelli comes with one large bamboo tube, 18 caterpillars in six colors, one action die and one color die, is made for 2 to 6 players, and is available here for $21.50.
With Christmas right around the corner – that’s right, I said it – I think Rapelli would make an excellent present for children preschool age and up!

The preceding is reposted from the Home with the Boys blog.

Recently the opportunity arose to review a family game that dealt with numbers. Since my 8 year old son loves games and also loves math, I jumped at this chance. Upturn is a product of Timberdoodle Company which provides quality educational games and homeschool curriculum. Upturn is a game that is easy to explain, easy to play and an exciting combination of numerical strategy and chance designed for children ages 6 and up. This game retails for $25.00 and would make a fantastic and quality gift as we approach the Christmas season. A few days after receiving a copy of Upturn, a catalog came in the mail from Timberdoodle and is jam packed with educational supplies ranging from curriculum, books, games and toys which provide fun, challenge and educational value.

Our game arrived promptly in the mail and as we opened the package it became evident that this was a quality product. The outer box is sturdy and the contents include plastic number racks to hold the number tiles and a drawstring bag to hold the thick and sturdy number tiles. I especially like the simplicity to keep together the contents since many of our board games can easily become scattered!

As we began playing, I was concerned about a lack of challenge since the object of the game is to discard your number tiles first. You discard your tiles by going up or down numerically from a tile placed in the middle of the playing area.

We had to keep the directions handy as the tiles include directions of turn for play along with a few skip your turn tiles and a “joker” or free choice tile. This game provided a much bigger challenge than expected. As the players would go along discarding tiles in one direction, the opponent’s numbers would often thwart your plan as you also had to accommodate their numbers in each numerical direction. Of course there was the unexpected “skip your turn” and then perhaps a sudden change of numerical direction – higher or lower.

This game provides opportunity to enhance mathematical learning through number recognition, critical thinking skills, sequencing and strategic planning. My family enjoyed this game and is looking forward to many more games of Upturn!

Sherlock Deluxe Edition

We played this game (Sherlock) many, many (and many more) times when my youngest was 4 and 5. Simple, fast-playing, good practice with basic addition … the girl loved it, and only mom started getting a teensy bit bored after the 50th game played. However, Gopher It! was delightful practice and a favored game well after the math concepts and facts were down solidly. The game involves addition of 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s, and there’s some strategy and, in a roundabout way, some subtraction built in, too. Highly recommended for young ones, but be prepared to play it a lot.

We have several games by the same company who makes Gopher It!, and have enjoyed them all. They have sturdy cards, cute artwork, a nicely sized box, and simple instructions. They travel well and are always a hit with other kids who see us playing and join in.

Double Shutter

I purchased the DOUBLE SHUTTER game at Christmas for my 9 & 6 year old daughters and they love it!  Most mornings they play a couple games with Dad while eating breakfast, before they start their day of schooling.

I had not started math with my 6 year old yet and just pulled out the Developmental Math book #2 a few weeks ago and she already finished.  She knew how to add all the problems because of double shutter.  So now we are on to book #3.

Reaction Game

I used this game (Reaction Game) with a group of six middleschoolers who are quite familiar with the concept of building molecules.  We’ve tried to play it on three occasions, but we’ve never managed to complete a game.

The game is very pretty, but it seems like they spent all their time on visual design, and not enough on the game mechanics.  For example, in the rules, you’re told to make a discard pile, but nowhere is there any mention of _why_ you would discard any of your cards.   This sort of problem – trying to figure out what the game designers _meant_ you to do – occurs frequently, and means that the game is almost impossible to play.

There aren’t enough potential molecules listed, and the ones that are listed are very heavy on the C, N, O, and H (as is the real world!) but there aren’t enough extra of those cards in the deck.

I think we’re just going to have to make up our own rules…

Educational games add excitement to any homeschool curriculum. Click here to view the dozens of options Timberdoodle offers.

Rolit Junior

We are always looking for a game that allows our little brother Matt (who is 3 1/2) to play with us on our “Board Game Day” that wouldn’t be boring or too easy for the older siblings in the family to play.  Rolit Junior solves all of our problems.

Word Quest

Word Quest reminded me of all the times when I would be doing a word search and someone would be sitting beside me pointing to words they found before I did.  This game took that principle and made it into a high energy race to find the word before your opponents.  It was exhilarating and playing a regular word search hasn’t been the same since.

Games are a great way to learn while having fun. Timberdoodle carries over 100 educational (and fun!) games.

Gopher It

We played Gopher It! many, many (and many more) times when my youngest was 4 and 5. Simple, fast-playing, good practice with basic addition … the girl loved it, and only mom started getting a teensy bit bored after the 50th game played. However, Gopher It! was delightful practice and a favored game well after the math concepts and facts were down solidly. The game involves addition of 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s, and there’s some strategy and, in a roundabout way, some subtraction built in, too. Highly recommended for young ones, but be prepared to play it a lot. We have several games by the same company who makes Gopher It!, and have enjoyed them all. They have sturdy cards, cute artwork, a nicely sized box, and simple instructions. They travel well and are always a hit with other kids who see us playing and join in.