Last year I purchased a pile of second-hand games from a South African, come New Zealander homeschooler. Her children had all grown up and she was moving and downsizing. Bless her heart she gave us a really good deal on a lot of games and puzzled and showered the girls with lots of lovely bits and bobs that she didn't want or need.
I came home with my giant haul, looked at it all, we played the easiest ones and then they were all popped into the games cupboard. Well this week I decided to pull out one of the board games and have a look at it and WOW, WOW, WOW... talk about maths in action!
Now before I go on I must warn you that I have been trying to see where you an obtain the game from and can't seem to locate it. It is possibly an old game but I have emailed the supplier that I found on the box and will see what I can find out because peeps it is so worth having this game in the games cupboard!
The Game is called GOT-IT! and appears to have been made by Toy and Puzzle World in South Africa and is for ages 6 - 99. It is a great game for practicing numeracy skills and challenges you in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
There are three levels of difficulty, 6 and up (blue challenge cards), 9 and up (pink challenge cards) and 11 and up (green challenge cards).
Basically you move around the board collecting number cards (IE land on a 7 pick up a 7 card) and the first player to get the exact number required on the challenge card, or be the closest to it wins. For instance the blue cards are only addition or subtraction and might say, "Add your numbers together to get to: 21" ... you move around the board and try and get as close to 21 as you can. You can call stay if you are quite close and don't want to chance blowing it by landing on another big number. Bit like 21 really and it's a bit of a laugh watching your competition deciding whether to chance throwing again.
The pink challenge cards (which give you a combination of two out of the four methods to use) might say "By subtracting or dividing your numbers from 120 or by using a combination of subtraction and division to get to 20". At this level you will need a piece of paper to work out different combinations of the numbers that you pick up, in order to get the answer. When you yell GOT-IT you have to prove how you came to the answer. IE. if I picked up a 5 and then a 4, I could say 120 / 5 = 24 - 4 = 20. If I picked up a 6 I could say 120 / 6 = 20 and so on.
With the green cards you have the choice of using the whole four methods (+, -, /, x) ... heaven help me, you have to think with that one so I have been dodging that level. Makes my head hurt just to think about it! They even suggest other mathematical processes could be incorporated at this advanced level, IE square roots. This level might be good for teams which they do recommend too. Apparently these people must be a hoot at parties as they suggest party challenges, IE battle of the sexes or family against family; they obviously need to get out more. "Seriously, you'd like us to come over for a math game? Well yeah sure, that just sounds dandy!"
Anyway I though I would share this "choice" (an old Kiwi word meaning awesome) math game that you may never ever find because, I want you all to be "totes jealous", but seriously if you can ever get your hands on one, it is a really good living math resource.
We were very fortunate to have been able to recently purchase some second-hand games and jigsaws from a homeschooling family that have finished homeschooling (graduated children ... yeah!).
One of the games we bought was Junior Trivial Pursuit. We had a ball playing this today as most of the questions were just great for our girls to answer. They weren't too hard but weren't too easy. We do have a couple of adult versions but they are just way too hard for the girls so we haven't used them in years.
Although they were hesitant to try the science questions when they had the choice, after a while they realised that they did pretty well on them. The sports questions were a bit hit and miss, but considering I didn't know some of the answers to them and I have a pretty well rounded knowledge of sports I wasn't bothered.
Unfortunately as this game "emigrated" from South Africa the "fun" questions were mostly South African related and we were a bit clueless with them so I had to sift through the cards for questions that weren't South African related, although if it's something that is interesting and worth them knowing about South Africa then by all means I left them in. No offence, but who is pictured on a certain dollar note is really not that important to my children living in NZ and that was one of the easier questions!
There was also another section, the TV and music section, which was a bit out of date for my girls. IE who was the oldest Huxtable Child (I loved the Cosby Family!) and based on other sitcoms that I grew up with. I really enjoyed these questions, not so much the 10 and 8 year old ... he he, the Mama had an old age advantage.
I have purchased some small white stickers which will fit nicely onto the cards so that I can replace a few questions/answers for the next time we play but otherwise it is a super game to play with children and I'd recommend looking to add one of these to your games cupboard. In fact, if you are a homeschooler, you may even want to make all the question cards up yourself based on what you have been teaching your children. It would be a great way to revise.
You may be wondering who won, well Scruffie felt we were spending too long on the game so decided to come and make his presence known. Each time we removed him, he simply came back and laid across the board. Soooo, the little walking mop, as the Papa refers to him, won this round!
Each year we Santa get the girls a board game to go in their sacks. They often play them after Christmas lunch when we adults are all lazing around with our full tums, and as a family we play them on Boxing Day.
When looking for a game, I firstly look for something age appropriate and that can just be played by the two girls without any parental help. It also important to me that the game is challenging and educational so that they are learning something. Mindless games are a waste of time and the kids soon lose interest. At the same time and really very importantly, it has to be fun.
This year my choice was Rummikub by Kod Kod International Games which is aimed at ages 7 and up and is for 2- 4 players.
It is a strategic game with numbered tiles and the object of the game is to be the first to place all your tiles from your rack onto the table in certain formations (groups or runs). When the first player to empty their rack calls "Rummikub" then the other players add up their remaining tiles and everyone gets a score. That way you can continue to play again if you want as some games are quick and others can take a while to play.
The only change we made was, that you are supposed to be only allowed a certain time limit, they recommend 60 seconds, when it is your time, so that you aren't waiting for ages for a person to take their turn. We didn't do this as we were all new to the game and were often explaining moves to each other. We have since decided that we'd give Agent Smelly 120 seconds, The Fashionista 90 seconds and The Papa and I would get 60 seconds for our turns, the next time we hold a Rummikub competition. It's actually a shame that they don't put an egg timer, or something similar in the box, for you to use for timing.
The girls picked up the game rather quickly and to my surprise were winning some of the games in no time at all. And no we weren't letting them win ... we are terrible parents like that, we play to win in this house! Some of the Fashionista's moves were really amazing, and both the Papa and I were blown away by her rearranging a few groups at a time in order for her to get rid of more of her tiles. In fact she seems to be the best at this game and had the lowest score by far.
This game could easily be played with a deck of cards and also online at www.rummikub.com
All four of us enjoyed the game. It wasn't too simple for we adults, in fact we had to think quite a bit about our moves, and the kids enjoyed the challenge of it too. So if you are looking for a good, fun, challenging game then I would recommend trying Rummikub. It's a keeper.
