Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Family Game Nights Can Be Educational & Entertaining

 ** A Geek Daddy was provided the featured products for free to review**

Making time for Family Game Nights is a great way for parents and children to spend some quality bonding time together and unwind from the stresses that careers, school and life can throw your way.  In addition to having fun, sometimes parents can also use a Family Game Night to provide their children with a learning opportunity as well. Utilizing fun activities to get children to associate education with problem solving, competitive challenges and entertaining play will hopefully help them develop a life long appreciation for learning. We recently enjoyed an educational and entertaining evening playing the games Create-a-Maze and High Seas ADDventure provided to our family by Learning Resources to try out.


Create-a-Maze, which was a Creative Child Magazine 2015 Game of the Year award winner, encourages strategic thinking, puzzle solving and helps promote hand-eye coordination skills.  Each player is provided a game ball. Then players can either build a maze based upon the layouts presented on 10 included activity cards or make a creation entirely from their own imagination on the game board.  Two goals are positioned on the board with the game's included 17 maze pieces used as obstacles.  Players must tilt the board so that a ball leaves one goal and enters the other in the shortest amount of time.  Get a stop watch ready and let the game begin!



Create-a-Maze is recommended for 1 - 4 players with an age range of kindergarten and up.  My first graders really got into building the mazes and challenging each other to see which of them could create the hardest obstacle course for everyone else to tilt and twirl their game balls through.  There was a lot of trash talking and laughing going on as we raced to guide our balls through the obstacles and into the goals in the fastest time.  Our family had a really good time playing Create-a-Maze plus the kids were exposed to some engineering principles and had to use some puzzle solving and critical thinking skills in the process of playing the game which combined our leisurely entertainment experience with some great educational value.


We discovered High Seas ADDventure at just the perfect time for our first graders.  This game helps children use number combinations to add up to ten which is just where my kids are in their school lesson plans at the moment.  Instead of moaning about having to do math homework our twins dove right into this game with gusto.  The basic premise of the game is each player gets a hand full of numbered cards with the rest being flipped over one at a time from a central deck.  As the cards from the central deck are shown, the first person who can call out that cards in their hand can be added with the flipped up one to equal ten wins the round and gets to move up a space on the playing board towards the finish line on the beach.

For example a 1 was flipped over and my daughter had a 9 and my son had a 5 & 4 in their hands.  My daughter yelled out first 9 + 1 = 10 and her game piece got to move ahead a space.  The next round a 4 was flipped over.  My daughter had a 4 in her hand and yelled out 7 + 4 = 10.  Oops no back a space you go.  The next round a 3 was pulled up and my son with a 3 and a 4 in his hand jumped on that yelling out 7 + 3 = 10 and got to move ahead.  Go too slow and your opponent can beat you for the chance to move ahead, but if you go too fast and answer wrongly you move backwards on the game board.  Plus there are some mischief cards thrown in the deck to stir things up as well.  Draw a shark card and everyone has to trade their cards with another player.  Draw an octopus and one of the players has the chance to steal a card from another person's hand.


I really noticed as we played this game that my children were getting some good practice with their math skills and having fun while they were doing it.  They even asked if we could play the game again soon.  If only getting them to sit down and do their math homework from school were so easy! 


Family Game Night
Create-A-Maze
Family Game Night
High Seas ADDventure


Learning Resources focuses on providing educationally focused games, toys and teaching aides. For more information on Learning Resources whole catalog of products  visit www.learningresources.com. Based upon our positive experience with their products, Learning Resources gets A Geek Daddy nod of approval.

11 comments:

  1. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy game nights either, my friends and I used to have them in college :) I miss those days.

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  2. OOOHHH...Create-A-Maze looks AWESOME!! That would be so much fun for the entire fam. Even my eye-rolling teens would like that one!

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  3. These both sound like great games. We grew up playing games and I totally agree that they are a great bonding and learning opportunity. I'm definitely adding these both to my list for my Grandson. He'll be at the perfect age soon. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. I need a game night. Thank you for the inspiration!

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  5. I'm not sure if my other comment went through! Your family always seems to have so much fun together--I love it! We like to pick up games at garage sales and Goodwill...you just need to make sure all pieces are inside. We love games that are educational and fun at the same time.

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  6. These sound like great games! As a teacher, I always set aside time each week for games in the classroom. They can be highly educational and kids have a blast playing them!

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  7. We love game nights! I sometimes miss our daughter being younger, but we still have a good time.

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  8. These look like fabulous games. I love games that challenge kids to figure things out like the maze game.

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  9. My daughter is just now getting to the age (four) where we can start having family game night. We just bought her Candy Land, Don't Break the Ice and Hi-Ho Cherio for Christmas.

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  10. We love game nights. Last night we played a few rounds of Spot It before bed time.

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  11. Your kids have so much fun! I love games that incorporate learning so well the kids don't even realize it. LOL

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