Week in Review – Family Fun

Are you ready for the changing seasons? Over at the Fun section we are looking forward to some fall related activities, but at the same time we are squeezing in a few last minute goodbye to summer plans, too. We started off the week with Mastermind. It’s a simple to learn, hard to master game to get those brains geared up for school. Read about how to adapt the game for younger players or to make it even harder. Tiny Origami Stars are a fun and simple craft. Consider them for prizes, secret messages, to make a mobile, or to … Continue reading

Mastermind – fun and logic

Mastermind is a great game for introducing or encouraging logical reasoning. One player picks four colored pegs and hides them on the end of the board. The other players uses educated guesses to figure out “the code” of colored pegs. There are six colors to pick from. One the code breaker guesses, the code maker places tiny black and white pegs off to the side. A black peg means you have a correct color in the correct position. A white peg means you have a correct color in your guess, but it’s not in the correct position. Officially it’s a … Continue reading

Bulls and Cows – a logic game

Kids love to crack codes, and its fun to use our brains. Here’s an easy to learn code cracking game that some schools are using to teach logical thought processes. I’ve even seen questions based on this game on middle school tests. The game is called Cows and Bulls. It’s similar to Mastermind, but you don’t have to buy anything to play it. You can play on a white board, or just a piece of paper. You need at least two people, but you play on teams or play cooperatively. One player thinks of a four digit number without zeros. … Continue reading

Visual Brainstorms – Game Review

Visual Brainstorms: The Smart Thinking Game comes with 100 sturdy over-sized playing cards. The cards are color coded for easy, hard, and extra hard questions. Some of the cards have bonus questions. Harder questions are awarded more points. Some have “visual” bonus questions that you can only answer by having paid close attention to the card before you flipped it over for the answer. This game can be played several ways. I like that it’s so flexible for rules and time limits. You can play as teams, or with one or two players. If you play as teams you can … Continue reading

Quiddler: The Short Word Game – Game Review

Quiddler: The Short Word Game is a great game for families. The game takes about 20 minutes to play, quick to learn, is very portable, and is challenging for most ages. The official age suggestions are 8 to adult, but I’ve used a variation of the game for younger children. I even sometimes use the cards for teaching reading. The 118 cards are beautifully illustrated Celtic calligraphy designs inspired by books from 500 – 800 AD. The cards all have letters, or combinations of letters (CH,TH, IN, ER, QU), on them along with a number for scoring. On each round, … Continue reading