Learning Resources Money Bags, a Coin Value Game

Money Bags sounds like a simple game, you move along the path on the board and earn money as you go along. Whoever has the most money at the end is the winner. The educational part of the game comes from the spinner, which tells you which coin denomination you are NOT allowed to use to make change, this encourages familiarity with money and quick addition/subtraction. The age range is pretty small for this game (7-9 years is recommended) although advanced youngsters can probably handle it with a little help. The fact that you earn money for doing actions qualifies this game for the "Teaching Kids About Money" group of games that I have come across.

Learning Resources Money Bags A Coin Value Game at Amazon.com


related posts:
Teaching your kids about money part 4
Teaching your kids about money part 3
Teaching your kids about money part 2
Teaching your kids about money part 1

Map Tangle - Put Your Right Food on Liberia

You know how this works. The game is like Twister, but played on a large map. Considering the general state of Geography knowledge with kids, this is a fun way to learn some world Geography while being active and socializing with other kids. Cards are drawn instructing the active player where to place a hand or foot, the object is to figure out a way to stretch and contort yourself to accomplish the instructions.

link

Ready... SET!

Aside from looking like symbols on an alien spacecraft, Set is also a card game for kids as young as 5 or 6. The object of the game is to combine three of the twelve face-up cards into a set, based on one of four characteristics: shape, color, shading, or number of symbols on the cards. A set is either three cards that are all the same, or three cards that are all different with regard to same characteristic. There's one more interesting aspect of the game, everyone plays at the same time! There is a lot of fun and confusion as everyone is reaching for the cards at the same time, and quickly rescanning the remaining cards for new patterns. This makes Set only a pattern recognition game, but a speed game as well. It is one of the few all ages (above 5 or 6 years) card games out there. It has a surprising 5 stars at amazon with 145 reviewers. At only about $7 it is a great game, and since it is basically a deck of cards it is also very portable.

SET Game at amazon.com

SET Game at ebay.com

Gobblet

Gobblet is a simple looking game that is part tic-tac-toe and part connect four, but has three dimensions. The game board is a 4x4 grid, and each player has twelve black or white playing pieces. Each player plays one piece at a time to try to get four in a row. Easy huh? Oh, did I mention that your twelve pieces come in four different sizes? And that bigger pieces can "gobble" up the smaller pieces on the game board? This is no hungry-hungry hippos though, it is a tricky game of strategy.

Cole is 4 1/2 and even though we need to throw a few games his way now and then to keep him interested, he gets it. He is starting to understand that you need to balance your own objective of getting four in a row with stopping your opponent who has a similar objective. Looking ahead more than one play is a critical thinking skill that we look forward to him mastering.

The real fun happens after Cole goes to bed and Mom and I get the game back out. Like Triominos, it is one of the few games that we play with and without the kids around. The playing board sits atop a carrying box, all made of wood (like the playing pieces) and is felt lined. This game was built to last for awhile, which is a good thing, because we plan on playing it a lot.

Phun creations

I ran across these and had to share them. Let them spark some ideas of your own:








related post: Free (but Phun) science software

More online puzzles

I rounded up a few more online puzzle sites:

discoveryeducation.com (part of discovery channel) has an excellent custom puzzle maker online, including wordsearches (you can enter your own words to use), criss-cross, math squares, mazes, and cryptograms. When you go to their website, don't be put off by the "buy it now" button. The free stuff is on the left hand side. The "buy it now" button allows you to buy a CDROM of the puzzlemaker software, but this is optional.

mazeworks.com (Java required) has an interesting mix of familiar and unusual puzzles and puzzle games. There is a maze generation program, but it is a demonstration of various maze generation algorithms rather than a printable maze program. There are plenty of other interesting things here though, including tower of hanoi, a game called Peg solitaire based on the old game Hi-Q, and a several versions of the block sliding game (I don't know if there is a better name for these games, but when you see it you will know what I'm talking about).

puzzles.com - This one is obvious, lots of good stuff here including logic puzzle

at hereandabove.com you can make semi-custom mazes where you can define the dimensions, path width, and even the colors of the maze.

Zingo Heroes

Just ran across this new version of Zingo, with Marvel super heroes!

Zingo Heroes at Amazon.com

Zingo Heroes at ebay.com

related post: Zingo game review

Teaching kids about money part 3

The Sims 2: Open for Business is an expansion pack for the computer game Sims 2 (which means you need to buy the Sims2 game first for the expansion pack to work). "Sims" are "simulated people" that you have a certain level of control of in the game as they go about their everyday lives. You direct their career direction and nudge them into doing certain actions, although they have a certain amount of "free will" also to do what they want based on personality factors. It is not a game for everyone. There are mundane elements like taking a shower or taking the garbage out that are not fun but are (guess what?) part of life. For kids overeager to be grownups this might help show them that it's not all it's cracked up to be. On the other hand, it might help them understand where you are coming from sometimes.

What about Sims 2: Open for Business? As mentioned earlier, it is an expansion pack for Sims 2, in which your "sim" opens a business such as a boutique, a used car lot, a retail store and manage the day to day operations including hiring/firing employees, running the register, sales, and manufacturing. Along the way your child will learn that "being the boss" is hard work, full of risk, and can be rewarding. It also might spark the entrepreneurial fire in their real lives, or at the very least give them a better appreciation for a hard day's work.

The Sims 2 at amazon.com
The Sims 2: Open for Business Expansion Pack at amazon.com
The Sims2 at ebay.com
The Sims2: Open for Business Expansion Pack at ebay.com


Related posts:
Teaching kids about money part 2
Teaching kids about money part 1
Monopoly Jr.

Zingo Game Review

Zingo is a variant of Bingo (with a zing!). Zingo involves matching an image and word on a tile with a number of images on the zingo card. Image and vocabulary recognition, matching, memory, concentration, and social interaction are the skills promised to be improved. On most of these points Zingo is successful.

The zingo cards have images like a foot, cat, bat, and a cake in a 3 x 3 grid. The game comes with 8 double sided cards. There are two levels of play (red and green), one on each side of card. The "zinger" is a pre-loaded tile dispenser that is slid forward to reveal two tiles at a time. The first to call out the word on the desired tile gets to place that tile on their card, when the card is filled with tiles the game ends. One positive aspect of this game is that on each tile there is a picture of an object and the printed word, this helps associate the word with the picture for early readers. I also like the fact that all of the pieces fit into a fairly small box neatly and can be pretty portable. The length of time to play a full game is fairly short, 5-10 minutes. One unfavorable aspect of the game is that after you've played it a few times there is not a lot more to learn, and the amount of variation between games is low. The two game levels have more to do with how often the players are fighting to get the same pieces so this increases social difficulty rather than added game play difficulty. Reloading the zinger is also not a very fun process for kids, although it only takes a couple of minutes to complete.

To summarize, Zingo is a good game, especially for 3-5 year olds. The manufacturer's age recommendation is 4-8, but I think that kids beyond 6 will find the game boring. To deal with the wearisome aspects of the game when played too often, I recommend you play the game some, then put it away for awhile so it feels fresh again when you bring it back out. Considering the low price ($10-$11 range), it is definitely worth it to add it to your game closet.

Zingo at amazon.com

Zingo at ebay.com

What's Gnu?

I guess I thought we might be able to skip this step with Cole the first time he recognized the word CAT and said "That says cat, daddy." I saw the world of literacy suddenly open up and swallow him whole. Unfortunately, the next day C-A-T didn't mean cat anymore. It might mean elbow one day, or Spongebob the next. What's Gnu is a word/spelling game where all of the words have only 3 letters. In the game you are shown one letter, and the goal is to create as many three letter words with it. The winner is the one who comes up with the most words. If you have a little one that is almost ready to read, and is starting to sightread some words, this game might just get you over the hump and into the "starting to read" step.

What's GNU? Game at amazon.com
What's GNU? Game at ebay.com

The Settlers of Catan

Settlers of Catan is one of those games that I have heard lots of good things about, but have yet to play myself. How often is it that you see several expansion sets and spin-offs of a board game? There's go to be something good going on with this game. If anyone has firsthand experience make a comment. By the way, it pretty consistently gets 4-5 star reviews at Amazon.

The Settlers of Catan - New 4th Edition at amazon.com
The Settlers of Catan 5-6 Player Extension - New 4th Edition at amazon.com
Mayfair The Settlers of Catan Board Game at amazon.com
Cities & Knights of Catan: 5-6 Player Expansion at amazon.com
The Settlers of Catan at ebay.com

Free (but phun) Science software

Phun is a free software tool written by that lets you experiment with gravity, construction, destruction, you name it. You can view the trailer below. Free download of the software is available here.



An online toy/tool in the same vein (although probably not quite as cool) called Soda Constructor

"Sodaconstructor is a construction kit for interactive creations using masses and springs. By altering physical properties like gravity, friction, and speed, curiously anthropomorphic models can be made to walk, climb, wriggle, jiggle, or collapse into a writhing heap"

Want more? Crayon Physics Deluxe has only a prototype version available, but it looks pretty similar to Phun, but uses a touchpad and is more of a puzzle game than a free form world.



But wait, there's more! Armadillo Run is a construction/puzzle game, and is already released (for about $20) the game demo is available here



Credit: all of these were found at badscience.net

National Toy Hall of Fame - Part 1

In sleepy little Rochester New York there sits the Strong National Museum of Play. In a shadowy corner and up a spiral staircase of the museum hides the National Toy Hall of Fame. Here resides an area dedicated to thirty-eight toys that have been inducted based on their broad appeal and historical stamina. One of these toys is the subject of this profile:

Marbles have been around for a long time. By some authorities it was played in one form or another in the classical period by Eqyptians and Romans (the Romans called the game "nuts"), and continues to be played in various forms around the world. The most common in America is usually called Ringer, where a ring is drawn on the ground and the object is to use knock an opponent's marble out of the circle with one of your own marbles. Other marble games use small holes in the ground (divots in some games) and the objective is to shoot your marble into a specific hole, usually to move on to another hole to complete a circuit or course.

One the most interesting part of marbles is the jargon that accompanies it. There are dozens of names for different marbles, to name a few: Taw - the shooter marble, Aggie - an agate marble, or a glass one that looks like agate, Alley - marble made of marble!, Keepsies - playing for keeps, where you keep the marbles that you shoot out of the ring, Knuckling down - rule that a player must have at least one knuckle down on the ground when he shoots, Fudging - a foul when the player does not knuckledown.

If you think you are good enough, there is a National Marbles Tournament (more pictures here)and a British and World Marble Championship every year (March 21st this year - go mark your calendar).

A good website to check out for rules and variations is here.

There is even a PC game of marbles available!




Marbles at ebay.com

Tri-ominos

We play a lot of tri-ominos (for kids). It might not be Cole's favorite game, but it is one his parents' favorite games. Sometimes my wife and I even get a quick game at night while Cole is brushing his teeth. The game uses triangle shaped pieces, something like dominoes. You have to play a piece only where the numbers (or animals in the kids version) in each corner match with the piece(s) you are placing it next to. There is some strategy involved in playing your pieces such that you can play more of your remaining pieces next turn. We also play with our pieces face up so it can get a little cutthroat at times trying to block the other players. Play time in the kids version takes only 5-10 minutes per game, and the pieces are small enough to put into a ziploc (there's no board to play on) and take with you to play a game to kill some time, like at the doctor's office, the airport, or waiting to claim your powerball winnings.

Tri-Ominos
Tri-Ominos for Kids

Cranium Cariboo

Cranium Cariboo is a game that Cole just recently outgrew. The game involves opening different doors to find a ball. Which door you open depends on the card you draw. There is a younger kids version where you find a door with a matching quantity of pictures (vegetables, helicopters, etc...) or in the older kids version you are looking for a letter used in the object's spelling instead. When you find a ball you put it into a small hole on one side of the board, when all of the balls have been found a treasure chest door opens and you can look on in awe at the treasure. Color and number recognition is reinforced (in the younger version of the rule) and letter recognition is picked up (in the older version). It's a good game for 2-4 year olds, although the manufacturer recommends 3 and above.

Cranium Cariboo

Lego Universe

Lego Universe is an MMO (massive multiplayer online) game that is still in development. Still about 2 years off, it will be targeted at 8-12 year olds, but they say there will be something for older kids (like me) as well. A trailer is available here (yes games have trailers now) and some concept art as well. Read the whole story here.

Free software for kids

A good collection of free software for kids, including mac software!

link (via kidsdomain.com)

Teaching kids about money 2

Another in the "Teaching kids about money" series. This one is another classic game. The board is in a grid of 31 squares that represent a 31 day month. The object of the game is to move through the month day by day, making investments, take out loans, etc. At the end of the month you get a payday. After a given set of months the total dollars are compared and the player with the most money wins. Its a good way to teach kids how to understand where money goes and how to hold on to it (or how you lost it).

Payday

related links:
Teaching kids about money 1
Monopoly Jr.

Monopolize your kid's time

A younger version of monopoly for 5-8 year olds. Instead of building real estate the kids are selling tickets to amusement park rides. Kids can learn math and money management skills.

Hasbro Games Monopoly Jr.

Finding puzzles online

Cole loves puzzles, and it is gratifying to me that he is curious and likes to solve problems. He started with simple ~24 piece jigsaw puzzles, now he occasionally does a 100 piece puzzle or two (if he can find all of the pieces). More recently he has dived into mazes and wordsearch puzzles. The mazes improve hand-eye coordination as he moves his pencil/crayon through the lines, and also works on his analytical skills by making him look ahead to consider the results of a "do I go left or right?" decision. Hopefully this will carry over into real world decisions like "what would happen if I jumped off the roof?" or "I wonder if it is a good idea to make my dad angry one more time?" and help him make wise decisions. We'll see. There are lots of puzzle books out there, but I would start with some simple free ones from the web first to see if there is even any interest. Here and here are sites with several free printable mazes of varying difficulty.

It is interesting that wordsearches are popular at our house, considering that Cole can't read yet. He knows his ABC's of course, and knows that letters are grouped together to make words, and he can even sight read a few words, but he is fanatical about wordsearch puzzles, especially if they contain words that he does not already know. I hope that he is learning a few new words, but more importantly, he is learning how to be methodical while he is searching for the words in the jumble. Assuming the word doesn't jump out of the page at him, I taught him how to start at the top and look for the first letter in the word, when it is found, then look for the second letter all around that first letter, etc... until the entire word is found. The methodical approach to what is otherwise a confusing situation is something that I hope helps him in his life going forward. There are several free wordsearch sites on the web, possibly the most useful is here, where you can enter whatever words you want and make your own puzzle. This way you can tailor the words for your kid's particular interests and level. I made one puzzle with breakfast foods, another with animals, and one with his friends names for example. The possibilities are as endless as your own vocabulary.

Assuming there is interest, try one of these books next:

The Giant Book of Mazes

Jumbo Puzzle Book: Word Searches, Hidden Pictures, and Wild, Wacky Puzzles! (Jumbo Kids' Books)