Home School Product Reviews

Great, like everything Timberdoodle sells!

Surprise, another great find by Timberdoodle!  I got this (Trucky 3) for my 3 yo to give us something fun and new to do during Christmas break.  He likes it a lot, but it’s a bit hard for him.  I think 4 and up will probably be better.  It’s very nicely made.  The only thing I can say is the games from this company (Smart Games) don’t come with good storage.  With all these little parts, I’m going to need to make a bag or something.  They come in a cardboard tray, but you’ll never get them back in the trucks like they were, at least I won’t, lol.  If you have a child who has done vision therapy and needs more work on visual perception, they’ll find this very challenging and beneficial, even if they’re older.

Logic fun for everyone

Anti-virus is fun as well as attractive and interesting.  It wraps up concepts from science in a logic challenge.  Our 4 year old is able to complete the starter challenges, and our older ones are challenged by the upper levels (our 3 year old just likes to play with the colorful pieces).  The way the pieces move diagonally as well as in groups adds to the challenge and makes it different from other logic puzzles.  The game provides an opportunity to discuss disease at the cellular level.  We added this to our “logic before lunch” sessions when we all take a logic game and complete as many levels as we can in a certain amount of time.  I wish we had 2 of every game because they especially enjoy competing against each other.

I bought Imaginets for my newly 3 year old son. He calls it his ‘shapes game’. He mostly uses it in free play, but has completed the first couple of pictures from the cards. Looking at the complexity of the harder cards, this is definetly a game that will grow with him! I like that it closes into it’s own carrying case, a feature that really cuts down on ‘missing magnets’. This game is solidly built and has a good size work surface. I would recommend it to others.

Love it! This is a great game to teach your children all about the history of the settling of our country, in a fun and easy way. Both our children, ages 5-11, and we parents love this game. It is fun to play, rewarding, educational, and a great deal for the money you pay. I highly recommend Settlers of America Trails to Rails to anyone who wants an indepth game to play with many ages, while teaching about things such as settling, creating towns, connecting towns, manifest destiny, and so much more.

A good toy for all ages

Camelot Junior is very popular in our house. I bought it for my 4 year old so that he’d have something fun to do during school time, but my older boys (ages 7 and like to play it, too. I like it, too, and will frequently turn to the more difficult puzzles in the back as I’m setting it out or cleaning it up to see if I can do them. Younger children (5 and younger) will need some help to do more than the first few puzzles, but it’s a high quality toy that can be enjoyed in many ways. My 4 year old will often start just playing with the blocks as he desires, and I can let him because the wooden blocks aren’t going to get worn our or lost like the small, plastic pieces in some other games. I also think it’s silly that the princess sometimes rescues the knight. My boys just always send the knight to rescue the princess.

Creative way to learn critical thinking skills

We purchased Anaconda for our 9-yr-old son as a way to help him focus on learning critical thinking skills, as he loves critters. While he may complain about completing a math assignment on paper, he will sit quietly for a long time and work on these puzzles, figuring out which pieces must go where to complete the snake. I have been adding these types of puzzles to our homeschool curriculum so that we can all have a puzzle to work on during “game time”. My son and I race to complete our puzzles, and my other children are occupied with other puzzles. My younger children enjoy just playing with the Anaconda pieces – putting a snake together without following the diagram. These games are a refreshing change from book work and I am looking forward to continuing this aspect of our schooling.

Andrea

Get ready for fun!

This (Hide and Seek Safari) is our family’s first foray into these types of puzzles and I LOVE this one! Question is, who is going to love it more, kids or parents?! My husband and I put the kids to bed and then sat and played with this game for an hour or more! Deceptively easy. The colors are bright and engaging, tiles easy to put in place, my littles (2 & 3) enjoy trying to hide different animals. The older two kids (7 & 5) are just in love with it. A family winner! A bonus is how portable it is – the top piece slides back to reveal a hidden compartment that the booklet and pieces fit in…Amazing! Another great Timber product.

Challenging and fun

I bought this logic game (Titanic) with my 13 year-old in mind, but sadly, it never made it that far … my 9 year-old snagged it, and hasn’t let his sister get hold of it yet! This is a challenging, thought-provoking game that uses a neat historical tie-in to spur interest even in kids who don’t normally “go for” logic puzzles. The card challenges progress in difficulty, and many at the upper levels have left our older family members stumped. Definitely a winner!

I have always wanted to know more about chess, and my children have been interested too. We have bought other chess teaching games before, but they didn’t hold their interest. Once A Pawn A Time is impressive right from the start. It is beautifully packaged, and had the children interested immediately! We have been using it in the evenings during family time, with our older 4 children, ages 13-6. We just finished the first book and this game is a winner in my book! What a wonderful way to introduce chess through a story! The characters are funny, the price is great, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in teaching, or learning chess!

We bought this (ThinkFun Knot So Fast Game) for a birthday gift for a friend.  At first it didn’t look too exciting, but once it was opened and looked at some, we discovered that kids of all ages (both girls and boys) could like this game.  It is nice that there are both easy and hard knots to complete.  The father of the birthday boy was excited about this gift because he was wanting to teach his son how to tie many of these knots, and this will make it easy and fun.  We also noticed that the cards would give examples of when and where that type of knot could be used, we felt that was a nice touch.  The one thing we weren’t too thrilled with was that the case it came in is very thin and tears very easily.  In fact, the first game we bought the case was broken, but Timberdoodle fixed that right away for us.  Overall, we are pleased and the birthday boy was happy.