# Some Board Game Reviews

By | 13th June 2016

As I’ve talked about before, I run a nurture group. We often use games to try to make maths learning a bit more fun. Here’s some reviews.

### Orchard Toys Magic Cauldron Amazon link

This game is quite clever. You pick up a sum and try to work it out. When you think you have the answer, you rub the heat sensitive panel at the back and the answer magically appears!

The components are very nicely produced, and it’s got lovely artwork. It’s also the game that the children were most excited about playing. However, it quickly got boring because of the limited amount of sums involved. The sums also seem to be odd. There’s mostly two single digit addition and subtraction in there, but also two or three multiplications and a few three single digit addition sums.

In summary: Lovely, but limited shelf life. 3i+7/10

Lots of one digit addition and subtraction sums in this box. A huge amount more than Magic Cauldron, which means they get less repetitive.

Students take a sum, solve it, and get to keep it if it’s correct. However if they get a ‘POP’ card, they have to put all of their earned cards back in the box.

Again, it’s produced really nicely, and the putting all your cards back is interesting from a nurture/learning to lose perspective. However it is possibly a bit too simple and thus its longevity is in question.

In summary : Good for short sessions. I wish they did a multiplication one. $e^x$  out of 10.

In summary: It’s too boring to make the maths practice invisible. $\frac{1}{x^2}$/10