Sometimes more of the same is not such a bad thing. That would be the case when it comes to Flash Point: Fire Rescue. Sure it owes much of its gameplay mechanics to cooperative games like Pandemic, but who's to say that's necessarily bad? Especially considering how much my boys seem to love those games. In my opinion, where Flash Point beats out its predecessors is the theme. My two boys have played both Pandemic and Forbidden Island and thoroughly enjoy them, however both games' themes are somewhat abstracted. Forbidden Island less so than Pandemic. Flash Point, though, absorbs the player in the action more than the others by making the theme something one can more easily identify with. Fighting fires is an every day reality and doesn't take much imagination to role play.
Frankly I am a bit surprised they loved the game so much. My oldest spent the entire two games we played in the fire engine, as the Driver/Operator spraying the hose at the fire. Two dice rolls along with an occasional driving of the fire engine and his turn would be over. The youngest didn't do much more as the Imaging Technician. His job was to spend action points flipping over POIs to see if they were people/pets or false alarms. When not doing that he was either moving the ambulance or driving the fire engine for his brother. I was the Rescue Specialist which meant I was tasked with most of the real work. I spent my turns running into the burning building, knocking down walls, grabbing victims and carrying them to the ambulance. I guess there's more to the game for them than just the few actions they did on their turns. The idea of fighting fire and helping rescue victims was exciting for them.
Fire fighting is obviously a very important job that is a necessity for any community. After the game I talked with my boys about other jobs, like fire fighting, that our government has made to help out its citizens and why they are necessary. Police, judges, teachers, army, and few others all came up. I think it helped them gain a greater understanding of just how vast and complicated our whole civil service complex is. At least I think that's the case. All I know is that they now have a desire to play a teacher and/or police version of Flash Point. Not sure how that would play, but I'm certain the boys will take it upon themselves to design it.
Other than serving as an entry point for a lesson on civil service, there's not a ton of classic academics involved in Flash Point. There's a little reading of the special abilities on the different fire fighter cards. The finding of dice coordinates on the board/grid helps a bit with graphing skills too. Overall it was a very fun family game that we all enjoyed quite a bit.
A few weeks ago my wife and I played Dungeon Petz with another gamer couple in the area. She immediately fell in love with it and insisted I purchase a copy for her and our boys to play. It's not often my wife tells me to buy board games, much less insists I do, so I wasted no time and did so.
We own Dungeon Lords and have yet to play that with the boys. While the theme is silly and fitting for fantasy loving boys, I didn't think they were old enough (5 and 7)to understand the mechanics of the game. That said, Dungeon Petz keeps the imps and adds cute little monster pets making it just too irresistible.
I did my best to get the boys prepared and excited for the game. No, I didn't purchase little monsters from another dimension for them to feed and take care of (not that I haven't tried). Instead I found the rules to the game online and let my oldest read them aloud to his little brother. They quickly got absorbed in the monster pets, items, and vendors/exhibits. Wasn't long before they had picked out their favorites and were arguing over who would get what monster when playing. They read the rules multiple times and had a pretty firm grasp on how the game was played before we even got it. So I highly recommend the reading of the rules alone as a nice homeschooling reading exercise. Definitely entertaining for adult and children alike. Not much else for pure academics in the game. Some math with the score keeping, but most of the meat is in the critical thinking involved in the game.
Once we finally did get the game, the youngest abruptly stated he didn't want to play. This despite being excited many days for it's arrival. Turns out he didn't like the idea of someone else possibly getting his favorite pet in the game. After talking to him for a bit, I was able to convince him that he should at least play on his brother's team. He did and they ended up losing to me by only one point. They definitely surprised me with their ability to understand a lot of the game's nuisances.
It may be time to introduce Dungeon Lords after all. I just wish the setup and clean up of Dungeon Lords and Petz wasn't so long. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the games have a few too many bits. The boys love that though. We actually still haven't cleaned up the game because they've been too busy using the bits in making up their own games. Makes me think my next game related purchase should be for a big box of game bits. That's kind of a brilliant idea now that I think about it...
My favorite games for the boys are the ones in which they can play with each other and need no help from me. Castle Panic is such a game. They have the rules memorized so are able to set it up, play, and put it away completely on their own. It's awesome because sometimes good ol' dad needs a break from games and kids. Safe to say that spending every day primarily with a 5 and 7 year old can become...tiresome. In those cases I can either turn the TV on for them and let 30 minutes of their life waste away or bring out Castle Panic (Quarriors also works too). Easy decision.
I think it shows why board game play doesn't always have to have some academic quality in order for it to be considered worthy enough for kids. Math, reading, history, etc. in games is great, but little is ever mentioned about their usefulness in building social skills (and keeping daddy sane). I love to hear the boys figuring out together how they are going take down some monsters or even working out an argument about the initial setup (the game allows for setup variability).
Because of all this I try to send the game along with the kids whenever they stay at grandma and grandpa's for an extended time. Sometimes grandparents have a hard time figuring out how to entertain the boys without resorting to turning on the TV. Last time at their place they had a game last over 3 hours (I'm not sure how they managed to make a Castle Panic game last so long)! I think grandma and grandpa had had enough of it, but the boys didn't want to quit (picture below). Now that's dedication to board gaming.
For homeschooling purposes, I've followed up a Castle Panic session in the past with books from the library on castles (why they were built, how, what was in them, etc.). There's also quite a bit of info on the internet about castles. Suffice to say, this was enough to send the boys on a Lego castle building craze for a few weeks.
Drachen Wurf, translated Dragon Dice, is a game from Schmidt Spiel's Easy Play Line. These games are great for kids and adults alike. They are very accessible and offer plenty of good decisions.
Drachen Wurf is a game about set collecting various colors of dragons through rolling dice via the yahtzee method. You first bring the collected dragons to your "drachen basen" dragon base where they sit until your next go when you can then claim them to a permanent set. Now if your opponent doesn't want you to claim the dragon they can steal by rolling one more matching color that what you rolled to steal it, giving you a dragon egg as a consolation. The dragon tiles have a dragon in 1 of 6 colors with 1 of 6 backgrounds such as city, mountain, or swamp. When you permanently claim a tile you must decide, Do I group the dragon by color or by landscape? If the dragon doesn't match either color or landscape of previously claimed dragons it starts as a single.
So the goal of the game is to score the most points and you want big sets rather than singles based on this table here.
This table gave me an idea about teaching the kids how squaring a number increases the value rapidly. The singletons are only worth 1 pt per tile while in the group of 6 each would be 6 pts per tile. To explain this concept, I pulled out the poker chips and had my oldest make groups of squares with 1-6 on a side and my youngest make groups of 1-6 in singletons.
For fun they decided to make a square that was 10 on a side in two colors and I didn't even prompt it.
I think the key for students to understand and enjoy math from an early age is experimenting with patterns. Math is patterns. The pythagoreans experimented with this same activity making squares and triangles with whole numbers. Not many first graders are discovering the meaning of a perfect square but with boardgaming we've been able to work it out.
square is a number times itself twice (exponentiation is repeated multiplication)... multiplication is repeated addition... addition is just repeated counting...
With four plays of Lords of Waterdeep in less than 24 hours, I think it's safe to say it's a hit with us. Rather, it's a hit with the boys and I'm just along for the ride. Didn't take long before our 5-year-old started making his own quest and building cards. In fact, he couldn't even wait till we finished. His mother had to take over playing for him mid-game so that he could work on his card creations.
He's really into writing words right now even though he needs help spelling most of them. So we're more than happy to see him practicing his spelling, reading, and writing this way and he's more than happy to substitute his boring reading textbook for this.
Our oldest also has got a kick out of reading all the quest cards, particularly the flavor text of each. He insisted we listen to him read through all of them last night and wanted to spend his reading time today reading them again along with the intrigue cards. There were plenty of new words on the cards for him to learn too, which is always good.
There's a bit of math involved in the game too as we make the boys keep track of their own scoring. Single and double digit adding is what this amounts to. It's better than nothing, but won't be replacing our math curriculum any time soon.
The oldest and I also fit in a game of Caylus Magna Carta too. It's not quite Caylus, the board game, but it's darn close. Lords of Waterdeep is also eerily similar to both games. LOW doesn't have the same level of tension on each turn as Caylus or CMC, but what it's lacking in tension it makes up for in theme. Caylus is really dry and after playing CMC, my oldest didn't find much about it he liked. On top of that it lacks any reading or math work, so makes for a poorer homeschooling choice too. I personally enjoy the tension and tough decision making of Caylus over LOW, but my opinion is not likely to sway either of the boys (or my wife for that matter, who also really enjoyed LOW).
Not much board game playing this past week , but the boys did come up with new Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game scenarios. I was going to suggest to them they do just this when my oldest(7) hands me a large sheet with what he says is the rules for a new adventure he came up with.
Now you can tell he did the work completely on his own because of the horrendous spelling errors. Phonetically it all makes sense, but definitely looks like a child wrote it.
Homeschooling side note, I refuse to spend time having my boys memorize how to spell words. I correct their spelling when I can and they read enough that dedicating time to it (along with grammar) seems like a waste. Rather have them spend time reading and writing than practicing spelling.
Every once in a while I "force" the boys to play a more heavy game. It's totally to sate my board game needs. Usually we play, I destroy them all, and they collectively bow down to my great board gaming mind. Or something along those lines. Well we recently played Hermagor, which I got in a math trade. Thankfully my wife was available because our youngest(4) gave up on the game shortly after I explained the rules and we needed a third. Our oldest then proceeded to kick our butts, which made me think the game must not be all that complex after all...right? Couldn't possibly be that I lost fair and square to my 7-year-old son.
As expected, the boys loved it right away (fantasy setting, adventures, treasure, die rolling - of course they'd fall in love with it ). We played the 2nd adventure first since that's what is recommended in the rule book, but the boys were disappointed that the huge Dracolich didn't make an appearance (okay okay I was too). So, we HAD to follow up that game with an adventure that included the big figurine. If for no other reason to get them to stop fighting over who got to hold and play with it. We beat both adventures, but just barely and on easy mode (started with three surge tokens instead of two).
Using the game as our homeschooling "lessons" for the day was super easy and seemed natural. E immediately started reading every card that he had to draw with no urging from me. There are some pretty difficult words on some of them too. Q did his part by adding and taking away HP from heroes and enemies. Admittedly, his math skills are a bit above this simple exercise, but at 4 years of age I'm not ready to go hardcore into schooling him yet. Let him play and pick up skills and knowledge as he goes. No need to get him hating math and reading at such a young age.
Anyways, those are just the tangible elements. There's also the intangibles like: cooperative play, problem solving, prioritizing, and critical thinking skills to name a few. Not to mention an important lesson to learn about exploring unknown, dangerous dungeons - let the tank do the exploring...or daddy.
Also didn't take long after finishing our adventures before the boys started making up their own along with their own set of rules. The only downside to this game is the time cleaning it up and the whining I get from both of them when I say it's time to be done. Here they are in the middle of some made-up adventure (obviously the more monster figures used the better).
I was not confident the boys would be old enough to handle the game, but boy was I wrong. After a few plays, it has sky-rocketed up to their favorite game. This is the case for both of them, which in itself is fantastic. They rarely love and want to play the same games. It's been the topic of way too many fights and taken a toll on my sanity. In fact, I'm writing to FFG right now petitioning them to include a "Parenting to Bickering Children" card that decreases one's sanity for their next horror game.
It didn't take the boys long before they noticed the theme of 7 Wonders and grew interested. From my vast homeschooling experience (and common sense) I've found when learners are genuinely motivated in a subject, it's the perfect time to explore, discover, and learn. So after the last two games we played, the boys each choose one Wonder and one Leader (I also bought the Leaders expansion) to learn more about. After hearing about the Colosseum and the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, they both wanted to draw their versions of what they thought the buildings looked like (pictured below). Q drew a version of the Colosseum that could be used in his current favorite video game, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts(also the only video game they play). Afterwards E says to me with a big smile, "I think 7 Wonders is WONDERFUL!" Can't argue with that.
Our 4-year-old hates losing...a lot. He often times will volunteer to play on someone's team rather than by himself or will form "secret" alliances with his brother during a game. All just to avoid losing. That's why I thought bringing some cooperative games to the table may negate his fear of losing. Being a bit dim at times, I didn't foresee that not only does cooperative gaming not take losing out of the equation, but it also heightens tension - another thing our little one hates. With that in mind, I decided that we should play Forbidden Island and Space Hulk: Death Angel. Read more »
10 Days in the USA is actually one of my favorite games. Why? It's easy to teach, simple to play, and most importantly...the games don't last that long. Bet you thought I'd mention something about how it's possibly the best game for teaching kids about U.S. geography. While that's true, I'm selfish by nature and especially so when it concerns MY time. This game is quick to set up, take down, and play (less than 20min most of the time). Playing games with toddlers and young children can be fun, but if I'm forced to play a long, drawn out game with them I may need electrotherapy afterwards to repair the damage. It's the very reason why I avoid playing RISK with them at all costs. RISK is a decent game with geography, but playing it with kids is also considered a method of torture in most civilized countries. RISK has been buried purposely behind and below many games in our storage. They'd have to dig pretty far to find it. Here's to hoping they don't.
The video below shows E describing his winning trip. It's a sort of house rule we have that the winner must play out their trip on the board. Helps reinforce the geography and gives the game a little bit of story depth.
, but the boys did come up with new 
). We played the 2nd adventure first since that's what is recommended in the rule book, but the boys were disappointed that the huge Dracolich didn't make an appearance (okay okay I was too). So, we HAD to follow up that game with an adventure that included the big figurine. If for no other reason to get them to stop fighting over who got to hold and play with it. We beat both adventures, but just barely and on easy mode (started with three surge tokens instead of two).
