Camel Up Board Game Review

 

Camel Up

Play Time: 30-45 min

Players: 3-8

Ages: 8+

Overview:

This is a lightweight camel racing and betting game in board game format. It’s hard to resist playing with the little dice pyramid, which is a unique way to deal with rolling the dice randomly but individually. On a turn, players can either lay a desert tile (which can jump a camel forward or back one space), use the pyramid to roll a die and make a random camel move, bet on this leg of the race or bet on the overall winner/loser. The camels can stack and move in an interesting way, making the outcome a little less predictable.

Review:

The game is very visually appealing! The pyramid is so fun that my 6 year old likes us to play so he can operate the pyramid and "run" the camels. The desert and pyramid markers were very thick and sturdy and the stacking camels were a lot of fun.

Honestly, this game was on and off our wishlist for years because I wasn’t sure I would like a betting game. I stress out over penny slots and am not a big risk taker. However, I found this game really enjoyable. The legs move quickly, as does the overall game. I never found myself getting impatient for my turn and the game was over almost before I remembered to place my final overall bets! While there is a penalty for betting incorrectly, it is relatively minor, so not enough to discourage gambling a little. (I still lose every time!).

The other nice thing about this game is its approachability. We've played with non-gaming grandparents and it worked just fine. You can teach and play this game pretty quickly and the game itself feels like its over almost a touch too soon (that's a good thing, I'd rather have a game leaving me wanting more than feeling like its dragging).

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Steam Park Board Game Review

 

Steam Park

Play Time: 45-60 min

Players: 2-4

Ages: 10+

Overview:

In the game you are building an amusement park and trying to attract the most visitors (earn money). However, construction and visitors are dirty. Dirt accumulates and either has to be dealt with or will cost you money at the end. All moves are determined by the dice you race to roll to your desired results, so you have to decide if you want to push for your perfect results or compromise a bit to beat your opponents and earn a reward. The person who decides on all of their dice first gets to clean some dirt for free, while the others have 3 rolls to complete their dice phase and get penalty dirt.

Review:

Steam Park is a game we’ve had in our collection for years. Honestly, we tend to forget about it until we need to play it for our yearly challenge, but then always enjoy it when we get it to the table! I think the reason we don't jump to play it as often is that it does take a while to set up. On the other hand, the reason it takes a while to set up is that the components are so much fun! Having everything set out on the table is very appealing, you just want to jump in and start building your roller coasters. Looking at your park in 3D is so much more satisfying than tiles would be.

The game has good decisions, balancing building with attracting visitors with dealing with dirt. It also feels really unique in our collection. We don't have anything else that feels or plays too similar. We also like that it is still enjoyable at 2 players, even with the 1st player reward and last player penalty.

On the other hand, some people might not like the speed component in the dice phase. Also, if you play with people who really like to think out each option on their move, it can take a while between turns. We usually do fine and can work ahead a little to make it go faster by resolving our dice where turn order doesn't matter while the first person is deciding.

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Tot School: Pete the Cat Theme

All three of my kids have LOVED the Pete the Cat books! Therefore, we've done some Pete the Cat learning activities with each. Here is what we did recently with my youngest, but you can click here to see what we did with my middle son (who was at a slightly different level).

We started with all the books we own. Some are favorites while others are less well loved.

Top three are:

I Love My White Shoes

The Missing Cupcakes

Perfect Pizza Party

She matched some shoes (printable here). This could also be a memory game.

We also worked on matching some letter buttons. (Printable here)

She did a matching worksheet.

Matching  cupcake cards and number tiles

We made cupcakes from the Enchanted Cupcake game many many times.

Pete the cat shapes book.

I made this Hide and Seek Positional Word Game a long time ago and got out a cat to play with.

We did some pizza sight words in a sensory bin.

Pizza Sight Words Printable

In my never-ending quest to make practicing sight words fun, I put together this super simple pizza activity. I just made up a bunch of ingredients with sight words on them and a plain pizza base to put them on.

I threw all the ingredients in a bin of split peas for her to dig through. The idea was that she would read the word to me as she put it on the pizza.

She did this for a lot of them, but then she also just played in the sensory bin, which is totally fine! This was supposed to be a fun activity.

I can also see asking for pizzas with specific numbers of toppings for some math practice!

Print the Pizza Sight Words Activity HERE!

Inspector Mouse: The Great Escape Board Game Review

Inspector Mouse: The Great Escape

Play Time: ~15 minutes

Players: 1-4

Ages: 5+

Video Overview:

Review:

Gotta love a versatile kids game! This one can be played cooperatively, competitively or with a more challenging variation. Now, I will say that the cooperative mode tends to be VERY easy. You have multiple people all keeping track of the order of the criminals and you can say them out loud as they go by in the windows. We also came up with silly nicknames for each of the criminals to help us remember (lollipop, hedgehog, rabbit, then cookie). You can scaffold it a bit in how much help you give your kiddo in remembering, though. Playing competitively is a bit more challenging, because everyone is trying to remember for themselves, without reminding everyone else. You'll have to decide as a group whether you will spin through the old criminals quickly or slowly when you are spinning in the opposite directions, to make it harder or easier (we definitely spin slowly so we can see the criminals pass by each time).

For the challenge mode, you have to try to use some deduction to figure out which of the criminals is driving the getaway car.

The components on this game (as with all our Haba games) are great. We love the way the mouse is the spinner and the criminals go behind the doors. Also, the little insert at the bottom is adorable. There are little "offices" where you put your gold stars as well as the "underground tunnels" from where the criminals are digging their way out. The alarm is super simple but effective.

I think this game works well as a kids game. I can't see my 13 year old ever choosing to play it, but he could totally play with our 6 year old and still enjoy it. The ability to chose how you play for different challenge levels will also help extend its lifespan in our collection.

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New Homeschool Games

We have a tradition of spending the first day of homeschool exploring the new books and board games that we will use for the year. While we have lots of board games already and I will be buying some new ones, these are the ones I got to kick off the school year! 

Also, I would argue that most games are educational, these I just bought specifically for school and include some more "academic" games.

Note: my kiddo is 6 but doing 2nd grade work, so I have a range of games.

ADSUMUDI Fun Ones: 

This is a math card game. There is a number in the center of an octagonal card, with other numbers all around. Then you can use addition and subtractions with two, three, four or five of those outside numbers to reach the number in the middle. The more numbers you use, the harder it is. There are a few other levels of this game you can buy, depending on the skill level of your students.

Jump 3: 

This is a card game based on adding and subtracting 3. Since we're in the pre-multiplication stage, I thought it would be a good one. They also have Jump 1, Jump 2, Jump 4 and Jump 5

Lucky Dog:

This game involves matching the dice various task cards. Some involve some math and dice games often involve probabilities.

Ultimatch:

I think this is the one I am most excited about. It is not actually a kids game or a "gameschool" game. It is a cooperative card game where you are trying to eliminate cards from a pyramid. You can match a trait or use addition and subtraction to match the number. The cooperative nature will help us work together on a game that would probably be too hard for him on his own.

Hapy Families:

This is an Egyptian themed game that also involves pulling cards from a pyramid. It is supposed to play similarly to Go Fish. I got it to go with our Ancient Egypt history unit.

Miss Bernard is a Wild Card!:

This is a language arts game based on the book series My Weird School. My son doesn't actually read the books, but this looked like a cute game about rhyming and parts of speech. We do not own many language arts games, so I thought it would add good variety to our games.

Number Blocks Puzzle Solver:

Now this game I actually got for my 2 year old, hoping she would work on it at the table while I work with my son on schoolwork. I included it here, because both of them LOVE Numberblocks and he likes puzzly games, so I think he will play with it a lot too.

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Ruby's Gem Quest Game Review

  

Ruby's Gem Quest

Play Time: ~10 min

Players: 2-4

Ages: 2+ (3 for choking hazard)

Video Overview:

Review:

The game itself is pretty simple and straightforward, which is necessary for the younger crowd. You spin the spinner to get colored gems for your treasure chest. The first person to get all the colors wins. There are also a couple of "bad" spots on the spinner to add to the "game" feel. For a really young or sensitive kiddo, you could skip them for a re-spin.

The components are great. Both my 2 year old and 6 year old went straight for the gems! I've actually had to make it clear that these gems stay with this game and other gems can go in playdough/kinetic stand. Ruby is super inviting! I like that the top hole is a little smaller for her thumb and the bottom one is a bigger for all of her fingers to help her orient the dragon/scissors (we have some training scissors that don't have this so she isn't as good at getting her thumb/fingers in). Having the gems be in the box is convenient and makes them easier to pick up, however, they never stay in their little color regions.

I love that Ruby got my daughter practicing her fine motor skills! She likes "feeding" the dragon and actually wants to do that more than she wants to play the game. I think this will be a great table activity for her while I work on homeschool work with big brother. Like I said in the video, when we play the game, we don't actually use the dragon. It is too hard for her to select a color with Ruby at this point. As she gets older, we will be able to play as intended, so I'm glad that gives us a little longer with this game. 

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2nd Grade Curriculum Choices

 It's time again to start prepping for the start of a new school year! Here is our current plan for the 2024-2025 year, although it can always change along the way. I it 2nd grade even though he's technically in 1st grade, most of his work is actually at a 2nd grade level or above.

Math:

• Last year we did Beast Academy Level 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 2A. This year we will continue with Beast Academy Level 2. We also have the Puzzles 1 book.
• He also reads a math "story" every week. This might be a Mathstart book, a Sir Cumference book or section out of one of our other math books. He really likes Amazing Visual Math, Lift-the-Flap Math Shapes, and even likes to steal his brother's Math with Bad Drawings books. We also got him How Did Romans Count to 100?, which he loved, so we might get some others in the series.

Language Arts:

• Read aloud - I read him a chapter book. Either one that is a little above his reading level or one that may be the first in a series I think he will like, but is hesitant to start. I will also try to tie some of these to our science and history units.
• Spelling - we will continue with All About Spelling. We ended last year about halfway through level 3.
• Grammar - This year we are adding in some grammar, in two parts.
• Grammar Galaxy - I bought level 1. We will do about 3 lessons a week.
• Grammar mini units - I bought the book How to Be Good at English Language Arts. At the beginning of each week, he will read a couple of pages and then I will get books from the library to read throughout that week. We might do things like a part of speech or punctuation. This is intended to be light and fun. We have some of these types of books and he enjoys them (A Mink a Fink a Skating Rink, Greedy Apostrophe: A Cautionary Tale, and Crazy like a Fox)
• Reading Comprehension - We started Daily Reading Comprehension part way through last year and we will continue. Probably only a couple of pages a week.
• Poetry - at least once a week I'll have him read a little poetry. He LOVES Shel Silvertein and Brian Cleary books. I also got him a book of Poetry Comics, so it shouldn't be hard for him to do.

Logic

• Solo Logic Games - we have a bunch of these. I want to make an effort to have him play one at least once a week. (I'll eventually do a post on these)
• Logic Grids - he's currently on Mind Benders Level 2. He only does about one a week.
• Books - I got a few logic and critical thinking kids books (and will get some from the library). I'll try to throw one book in his book basket a week, although some he may need to read with me. We started out with Think Like a Detective, Maybe Yes, Maybe No, and There's a Dragon in my Garage

Science

• Units - We're going to do units based on the Next Generation Science Standards for science this year. We will do some labs, watch videos and read books based on the different concepts. Loosely, they are sound and light, biomimicry, how plant an animal offspring look like their parents, but not exactly, the sun, moon and stars, daylight and engineering. I'll try to post as we go, these are just a few of the books we will use.

History

• Units - I gave Archer a few choices as to what we could do for history this year. We ended up going the ancient history route, planning units on Archaeology, the Stone Age, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient China and possibly the Aztecs, Incas and Myans. The plan is to watch videos, read books, find some activities and maybe even play some games related to each. I have booklists made already, but how long we focus on each and how deep we dive will depend on his interest level. 
• I plan to give him How the Seven Wonders  of the Ancient World Were Built at the beginning of the year, just to increase interest. Then I have several of the books from the See Inside Ancient Greece Series. We also plan to use a bunch of You Wouldn't Want to Be books.

Spanish

• We're going to try to add in Spanish this year. We have a few videos (Little Pim, Whistlefritz), flashcards and books in Spanish, and I got him a Spanish workbook. I'm not sure how fast we will work through it. It's one I'm going to play by ear a bit based on how interested he is.

Diced Veggies Board Game Review

 

Diced Veggies

Play Time: 20-30

Players: 2-4

Ages: 6+

Video Overview:

Review:

Because of the way the dice represent ingredients and you use a cleaver to select them, this game feels unique in our collection. It is quick to set up and play without being overly simplistic. My husband, teen and I all like it, but I love that my 6 year old can play too. It will definitely get more use because it fits a wide age range. From an educational perspective, it has a tiny bit of math, in that you have to decide how to get the dice in the right colors and maximize how many you can get, while still equaling a total of 10 or less. You're also trying to balance complete each recipe with a hype card with trying to complete them quickly since the first player to 6 recipes triggers the end of the game.

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