Magic Mountain Cooperative Game Review

 

Magic Mountain

Players: 2-6

Play Time: 5-10 min

Ages: 4+

Video Overview:

Review:

Magic Mountain is a nice, light cooperative game that lets you include younger ones in game night. Kids (and adults) love racing marbles down a track in a game. It has amazing table presence. The game is engaging enough for my 6 year old, but my 2 year old can play with us (even if she doesn't "get" the goal). They both ask for it and it plays in minutes, so it's easy to oblige. On the other hand, there isn't a whole lot of variety to the gameplay, even with the more challenging level. I don't see older kids wanting to play this more often. Therefore, I feel like this is a game for families wanting to be able to incorporate younger kids into game night.

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Planted Board Game Review

Planted

Players: 2-5

Play Time: 20-30 min

Ages: 8+

Overview:

In Planted you are trying to make your house beautiful by decorating with houseplants. You are collecting plants and the things they need, namely, sunlight, water and fertilizer, via cards.  Cards are passed between players for choosing (like Sushi Go). At the end of each round, the plants you take care of successfully grow, earning you more points. You can also earn items like tools and decorations to help you make the most of each round. Tools help you use your resources more efficiently and decorations help you score bonus points for different types of plants. The person with the most points at the end of four rounds wins.

Review:

The components of this game are high quality and appealing, the artwork is serene and beautiful. Helping these plants thrive is much less stressful for me than keeping real plants alive! We like the simultaneous turns, making the game feel super quick. Four rounds is a good amount of time, almost making you wish you had more. My husband, who can get pretty competitive, says he finds himself not really caring as much about winning this one because it is just so enjoyable to play. I agree! There definitely is something satisfying about putting all the little suns and water droplets on your plants to make them grow! We love calm, cozy games and this definitely fits into that category. If you want something with more direct player interaction and tension, this is not the game for you.

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Tot School: Hearts & Doc McStuffins

 Tot School last week was focused on the heart shape and Doc McStuffins, mostly because my daughter is obsessed and has given me hundreds and hundreds of checkups in the last month. We do tot school to keep her learning and growing, but mostly to keep her stimulated and occupied while we homeschool her big brother. There's no pressure on her to achieve any particular skill in any sort of timeframe.

This week we got all of our Doc McStuffins printables from 1+1+1=1 and Blooming Brilliant.

Of course, we started with books. 

This week's heart work.

She loves this search and find book.

We did lots of the worksheets with dry erase crayons.

Doc McStuffins match ups.

Heart play dough with cookie cutters.

Coloring hearts (Printable found here)

Do a Dots with her dot page.

Liquid water color painting, which I cut into hearts to hang on the wall.

Basket of doctor tools.

Non Themed Work

Two Piece Puzzles

Wooden Sound puzzle

Sight Words Zingo

Count Your Chickens, with friends. Yes, we had to make the stuffies spin the spinner on their turns. We counted for them though! :P

MonsDRAWsity Board Game Review

 

MonsDRAWsity

Play Time: ~3 min per round (total time depends on number of players/rounds)

Ages: 8+

Overview:

MonsDRAWsity is like a monster police sketch game. In the game, one person is the witness and has 20 seconds to look at a monster card. Then they must turn the card down and have two minutes to describe the monster in as much detail as possible while everyone else furiously tries to draw what is described. After two minutes, the witness selects the drawing that most matches their memory of the monster. Then the monster card is revealed and all the artists vote for the one they think most closely matches the original. The game continues until everyone has had a chance to be a witness. The game technically says 3-8 players, but you could easily play more with more white boards or paper and pencil.

Review:

I thought this made a great, light party game. We have one fabulous artist in the family, but the rest of us aren’t great and still had a wonderful time. It’s definitely a game you can’t take too seriously. The artwork on the monsters is wild, creative and fun, definitely unpredictable. The game comes with a lot of cards, so I feel like there is quite a replayability, even if playing with the same group. There are also expansions if you should need more monster cards. Since we don’t play group games all that often, I think we’re set with just the base game. We won’t be able to remember all the cards between plays, even if we eventually make it through the entire set!

This is one to keep in your arsenal of party games when you need something light for a crowd.

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Homeschool Archaeology Unit

 We just wrapped up a couple of weeks learning about Archaeology (with a little Paleontology). Here's what we did.

Books & Worksheets:

Note: my kiddo is 6, so whether or not I make him write for his reading guides depends on how much other writing he has for school work that day. If he has a day with a lot of writing, I write for him.

Archaeologists Dig for Clues

The Street Beneath My Feet

Sharuko: Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello

Fossil Huntress: Mary Leakey, Paleontologist

My Book of Fossils (he had no interest in this one)

The Magic School Bus Shows And Tells: A Book About Archaeology

Science Comics: Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers

Reading Guides

Archaeologists Dig for Clues Reading Guide (broken into two sections)

Archaeology Unit Wrap Up

Videos:

Activities:

I had originally planned to create our own fossil dig similar to how I did with my oldest here. However, I did not have any sand, so it was cheaper/easier to just buy a couple of fossil dig kits. We used one of the mini DigIt! Kits, but I wish we had used this DigIt! kit. The kids were excited about their pretty rocks, though! 

Had my kiddo been just a touch older (or more competitive for games), I would have gotten Fossilis. I might still when he's a bit older. 

Akropolis Board Game Review

 Akropolis

Play Time: ~25 min

Players: 2-4

Ages: 8+

Overview:

Akropolis is a tile laying game, where you are trying to create the best city. The tiles are three connected hexagons, each representing a city district. Each district (color) has its own scoring criteria. Some districts score by being placed together, others by being separated, other by being on the edge of your city, etc. Each type of district also has "plaza" multiplier tiles, which can earn you lots of points. What is interesting about this game is you can play on top of already placed tiles. The districts on the 2nd and 3rd levels are worth more points, but cover up districts below them, making them worthless. Tiles are selected from a central "construction site," costing various amounts of stone, depending on position.

Review:

This game has swiftly made it to one of my favorites. It plays quickly, with very little downtime between turns. Each person builds their own city, and while you are taking tiles from a shared "construction site" there is not a lot of player interaction. You might take a tile someone else wants, but nothing more aggressive. This might be a downside for some, but I tend to like games where I compete to do whatever the task is the best, rather than trying to thwart each other. I find it to be a very relaxing and satisfying game. It is not going to be your thing if you want more tension in games.

I look forward to trying out the Athena expansion when it releases, which will add a bit more challenge. We're also studying Ancient Greece in homeschool this year, so I may even try to teach my 6 year old. He is a fan of Cascadia and this is only a slight step up from it in difficulty.

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Walking in Burano Game Review

 

Walking in Burano

Play Time: 20-40 min

Players: 1-4

Ages: 14+ (I'd say maybe 10+)

Overview:

Walking in Burano is a tableau building game where you are constructing colorful houses on the streets of Burano, trying to attract tourists. Houses are built out of cards you draw from a community draw grid and you can take 1, 2 or 3 cards at a time, earning 2, 1 or 0 coins respectively. Building costs you different amounts based on how many sections you build in a turn. When you complete all three sections of a house, you get to select a visitor to place at the bottom of that house. Each visitor earns different points based on different features of the house or street. The artwork is pretty and you’re collecting things like cats, plants, awnings, streetlights and even chimneys for Santa. Once one person completes 5 houses, the game ends.

Review:

I’ve played multiple times now and I really WANT to like it. There’s nothing wrong with the game. I just don’t find myself really enjoying the process of playing. My husband said the same thing. It is fine. We would play again if someone wanted to, but probably wouldn't chose it.

One minor part we don’t like is that at the end of the game when you're just a card away from finishing your five houses, we kind of just burn through turns trying to get the final piece we need. It's kind of an annoying drag to the game and ends up relying on a little luck to be the first person to get the color card you need.

We don’t really have any other tableau building games that work in quite the same way and since I'm not opposed to playing again sometime, we'll probably keep the game for now. If I find something of a similar mechanic that we enjoy the gameplay of better, this game will be replaced.

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