This week's game was recommended to me by my friend Katie Charner-Laird, a parent of two kids and a principal in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She recently started a math games club at her elementary school, and she said that Zeus on the Loose was one of her students' absolute favorites to play.
Read MoreYou know Tenzi; it's that tube of multicolored dice that suddenly appeared in every toy store in America a few years ago.
I bought the game and played it with my kids a year or so ago, but I wasn't sure how mathematical the game was at its core. Other than learning how to recognize, or subitize, the number on each side of the dice, where could I find the math?
Then I bought the companion piece, 77 Ways to Play Tenzi. Some of the games are ridiculous and silly, while others are really interesting mathematical games. Best of all, they all incorporate the most fun and addictive aspect of Tenzi: frantically rolling a ton of multi-colored dice.
Do you have a Sharpie handy? I hope so, because today we are going to be defacing a classic game, Connect 4!
Connect 4 doesn't need any improvement, honestly. The game is great for young kids developing their fine motor skills and their spatial reasoning. But I found a lovely little variation from Catherine Reed at Brown Bag Teacher and I just had to try it with my son.
I picked up Manifold at a game shop shortly before a flight I took recently. It turned out to be one of the most addictive puzzle games I've ever played. As soon as I solved one puzzle, I stuffed it in the front pocket of my backpack and tore off the next one.
By the time the plane landed, my backpack was practically brimming with folded puzzles. I had solved over half the puzzles and was feeling very accomplished (I had to skip #39, but I don't want to talk about it and I'm not mad.)
This game is aimed at older kids (10+) than most of the games I review for this newsletter. It's also one of the most engaging and unique puzzle-solving experiences I've ever had. I simply had to share it with you.
I walked into the playroom holding a board game, which is a pretty routine occurrence in our household. "Hey J, do you want to play a game?"
"No."
"It has lasers..."
"OK!"
Since I showed my son this game, he has introduced it to his little sister, his cousins at the beach, and two different friends who have come over on playdates. He has also wandered our house, finding new mirrors he can use to bounce lasers onto furniture, framed photos, and annoyed family members.
In short, Laser Maze is a hit in the Haines household. J definitely doesn't think of Laser Maze as a math game, but I can already see him learning new concepts about angles of reflection and spatial relationships.
Occasionally he even lets me play, which is really fun because, again, there are lasers.
The first five years of your child's life are the most developmentally important years, and the foundation they build through play and exploration will form the basis of their learning for years and years to come.
That's why I am a big proponent of the Tammany Hall approach to the first five years: Math Early and Math Often.
So when I found Race to the Treasure, I knew I had to share it with my kids, and with you! If you're looking for your child's first board game, you could hardly do better.
Read MoreCan a three-year-old play Yahtzee? Well, no, not exactly. The rules are simply too complex.
But can a three-year-old have a rich mathematical experience while playing a modified version of Yahtzee, or by helping their parent or sibling play? Of course!
You may have noticed that I am pretty liberal with my age recommendations for games. This is intentional; I believe that kids can gain mathematical ideas and insights from a game, even if they don't have the attention or skill to complete the game in its original form.
Once you know how to play a game, you can modify it to meet the needs of your children. To illustrate what I mean, let's talk about Yahtzee.
My wife really shouldn't let me go to Target. Every time, she sends me to get one simple item, and every time I show up at home with a new board game. I keep telling her "It's helping the kids learn!" but honestly they'd probably learn plenty from the other 28 board games we have...
But you, dear reader, get to benefit from my game addiction! A few weeks ago, I spied a game in retro packaging that I'd never seen before. I eagerly snapped it up and brought it home.
Within minutes of playing the game, I couldn't wait to see what my own students could do with the mathematical implications of the game. It's a great game for a 3rd or 4th grader, but the mathematical ideas that the game uses are taught in high school and college courses on discrete mathematics. Not that your kid will know that! To them, they're just guessing which colors match your secret code.
When I was a kid, my parents bought me a triangular peg solitaire game from a Cracker Barrel, and I never could figure it out. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't end the game with one peg. I always ended the game with two or three pegs, no matter how hard I tried.
Well, I am happy to announce that I dug this game out of the closet recently, inspired to finally conquer my old nemesis. And I did it! At long last, this deceptively challenging game of pegs and holes was within my grasp.
Read MoreWhen playing a game with your child, should you let them win? This is a common dilemma for any parent who routinely plays games with their kids. On one hand, you don't want to beat your kid at Go Fish or Battleship or chess every time; they'd get sick of losing and quit playing with you eventually. On the other hand, you don't want your child to get so accustomed to winning that they can't handle a loss.
Read MoreOf all the games I've recommended so far, Mancala is the one that I recall most fondly from my childhood. I vividly remember playing match after match with my friend John, arguing over strategy and trash-talking the way that only eight-year-olds can.
I loved this game as a kid for the same reasons that I love it as a parent: Mancala is a breeze to learn, easy to set up, play, and clean up, and contains far more strategy than you might expect.
Read MoreDuring winter break, our family drove to Atlanta to visit some family and friends. I wanted to get a game that my son J could play in the car, so I picked up Rush Hour Jr. It's a lovely little solitaire logic game that travels easily in a car or on a plane.
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