Games and Puzzles

Single person brain game for children 6 years old and upwards.

There are sixty challenges, easy ones at the beginning and getting harder and harder.  Position the four penguins as indicated on the challenge and then try and fit in the ice floes around them. There may only be four ice floes but it's really quite tricky.

The board is about 15cm across and comes with a lid, making it a great travel game.

SG431

Dobble is a modern-day classic game of observation. Each card in the tin is unique and has 8 symbols on it.à However one of these, but only one, symbols is shared with each of other cards.  You have to be the first to spot that shared symbol .  It should be easy but it's not.

Suitable for 6 years+  (younger children might stuggle with some of the symbols so try Kids Dobble which has fewer but more recognisable symbols)

Single person brain teaser game for children age 5 and upwards (and shop-keepers when it's quiet in the shop).

Three hungry worms want to share an apple.

Choose one of the sixty challenges.  Twist the apple board so it matches the one shown in the challenge and then work out where to position the three bendy worms.

 

 

 

SG445

Wooden board marked with the numbers 1 to 90.

90 wooden number discs.

48 cards

28 cm across

Age suitability: 3 years +

BJ788

Outfoxed is an excellent cooperative deduction game.  Someone has stolen Mrs Plumpert's prize pie and you and the other players have to work out which fox is the guilty one. At each roll of dice, you get a chance of finding a clue or revealing a suspect.  If you are unlucky or you make a mistake, the fox moves three steps closer to getting away.

Children like this game because it's fun.  Parents like it because it also encourages the children's logic and memory skills.

Each game takes about twenty minutes.

Age suitability: 5 +

2-4 players

Here is an excellent review on Youtube from Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower:

Play nine fun card games with this pack of cards and learn more about seven 'Inspiring People' in the field of sustainability from across the globe.  This is the second deck about Inspiring People.  There were simply too  many to put them all in one pack.  The two decks are independent of each other so you don't need one to enjoy the other.

 

This is one of the 16 different packs of Diversity Decks that the maker, 'Maintenant - Sustaining now', has put together to teach children about Science and the Environment.

The cards all have an science/sustainability theme, so most feature the seven Earth's Spheres whereas others are about animals, bacteria and inspirational people, the aim being to educate children as they play the games.  Players and their parents can go onto the website and learn who the people on the cards are (highly recommended).

Each Diversity Deck has seven themes: in this, the Inspiring People, one, there are cards about Wangari Maathai, Mariam Al-Astrulabi, Sonia Guajajara, Christiana Figueres, Rene Dubois, Polly Higgins and Liu Bolin.  There are six cards in each theme, each with the same illustration, plus two 'Parry' ('Global Citizenship' and 'Education for Girls') and one 'Calamity' ('War') cards (good and bad chance cards to spice up the games), so 45 cards in the handy tin.

The cards are cleverly designed so that you can play a wide range of games with them.  These games vary in complexity from Rock, Paper, Scissors (suitable for 4 year olds) through to 17 Goals (a form of Black Jack suitable for 8 year olds).

The games are :

Rock Paper Scissors (4+),

Calamity Game (4+) - like Old Maid,

Be an Elephant (5+), a memory matching game,

Free from (5+), be the first to get rid of your cards by matching pictures or numbers,

Snaffle It (6+), win the most points by playing cards with the same picture but with different points,

Happy Diversity (6+) - like Happy Families,

Double Snap (7+),

17 Goals (8+) - like Black Jack

Pyramid Solitaire (8+)

The games are the same for each tin.

Please note that although the games are designed to be played by children 4 years old and upwards, the pictures and the messages behind them may be way too heavy and not  appreciated by four or five year-olds.  So for younger children it might be sensible to choose one of the animal-themed sets.

Play nine fun card games with this pack of cards and learn more about seven 'Inspiring People' in the field of sustainability from across the globe - and no, Greta Thunberg isn't one but one of her distant relatives is.

 

This is one of the 16 different packs of Diversity Decks that the maker, 'Maintenant - Sustaining now', has put together to teach children about Science and the Environment.

The cards all have an science/sustainability theme, so most feature the seven Earth's Spheres whereas others are about animals, bacteria and inspirational people, the aim being to educate children as they play the games.  Players and their parents can go onto the website and learn who the people on the cards are (highly recommended).

Each Diversity Deck has seven themes: in this, the Inspiring People one, there are cards about Vandana Shiva, Valentina Tereshkova, Rachel Carson, Rizwana Hasan, Shahira Fahmy, Pierre Rabhi, Svante Arrhenius.  There are six cards in each theme, each with the same illustration, plus two 'Parry' ('Sustainable Development' and 'The 3 R's') and one 'Calamity' (Hunger) cards (good and bad chance cards to spice up the games), so 45 cards in the handy tin.

The cards are cleverly designed so that you can play a wide range of games with them.  These games vary in complexity from Rock, Paper, Scissors (suitable for 4 year olds) through to 17 Goals (a form of Black Jack suitable for 8 year olds).

The games are :

Rock Paper Scissors (4+),

Calamity Game (4+) - like Old Maid,

Be an Elephant (5+), a memory matching game,

Free from (5+), be the first to get rid of your cards by matching pictures or numbers,

Snaffle It (6+), win the most points by playing cards with the same picture but with different points,

Happy Diversity (6+) - like Happy Families,

Double Snap (7+),

17 Goals (8+) - like Black Jack

Pyramid Solitaire (8+)

The games are the same for each tin.

Please note that although the games are designed to be played by children 4 years old and upwards, the pictures and the messages behind them may be way too heavy and not  appreciated by four or five year-olds.  So for younger children it might be sensible to choose one of the animal-themed sets.

A simple matching and memory game.  Each player has a board with 6 dinosaur pictures on.  The picture cards are placed faced downwards on the table.  Players take it in turn to pick a card.  If it matches one of the pictures on their card, they keep it.  If not, the card is returned to the table face downwards and it's the next player's turn.

The winner is the one who completes their dinosaur board first.

2 - 4 players

Age suitability: 3 - 7 years

036

Orchard Toys is a Norfolk-based company designing and making their games in-house. They have been going for years and have a reputation for producing good, honest games which are both fun and educational.  All the games are fully tested by teachers and of course by children so they are totally safe and dependable.

Most of the games are aimed at the 3-6 year olds.  To an adult the games will inevitably seem somewhat simplistic but they really know that age group so I never have any hesitation about recommending them.  Obviously children develop at different rates so some children may not be able to follow the instructions at first but that doesn't seem to matter as they enjoy playing with the colourful cards.  As the child develops, it isn't long before they fully appreciate the game and they benefit from the educational aspects whilst enjoying themselves.

Abalone is like chess played with marbles but thankfully the rules are more simple and straightforward.  It is two-person game that bright seven year olds will be able to play.  There's even an Abalone world championship.

You have a hexagonal board with 14 white marbles set up against your opponent's 14 black ones. When it's your turn, you move one of your marbles, or a row of two or three marbles, one step in any direction. When your marbles meet your opponents, on your next move you can push them backwards, forwards or sideways.  The aim is to push your opponent's marbles off the board and into the gutter that surrounds it but your column of marbles has to bigger than theirs.  So you need two of your marbles to push one of their marbles, three of yours to push two of theirs. The winner is the first to push off 6 marbles.  For most people, the game will last about 20 minutes.

Here's a video explaining it:

Cat Crimes is a single player brain game in which you have to identify which of the six cats committed the crime. So choose a challenge card, put the crime token on the board and then using the clues on the card work out where each of the cats were sitting.  The one sitting opposite the token is the culprit.

Age suitability: 8 years+

This is the brain game that everyone knows.  Voted one the best 25 toys of the last twenty five years and approved by Mensa, it deserves to be so well known.  Personally I find it infuriatingly difficult, so much so that when demonstrating it, I have had to memorise how to do one of the easier challenges and then hope that no one asks me to show them how to do any of the other challenges.

You set the board up as detailed in one of the 40 challenge cards.  Then you have to slide the other vehicles out of the way so that your little red car can escape.

Single person brain game.

Age suitability: 8+

 23 x 20 x 6 cm Approx.

Test your brainpower by manoeuvring the squirrels around the board so that they drop the nuts in the holes.

Single player brain teaser game for children aged 6 onwards.  There is a booklet with 60 different challenges.  The early ones are relatively straightforward but the harder ones will stretch many an adult.

To see more, please watch the video:

SG425

Magnetic travel game in a book format, held closed with a popper.

Choose one of the 48 challenges and then work out where to put the magnetic pieces.

In this game you have to place the three duck families in such a way that the ducklings follow their mothers.

Age Suitability: 6+ years old.

 

Single player brain game for children age 6 upwards with a booklet of 120 challenges that start easy and get harder and harder.

Single player brain game for children age 6 upwards with a booklet of 120 challenges that start easy and get harder and harder.

Single player brain game for children age 6 upwards with a booklet of challenges that start easy and get harder and harder.