Half term begins... and it's raining!

My children started their half term holidays today... and it's raining! We managed a quick dash to our local library in between showers and chose some good reads for the week. We also have the facility to borrow DVD's from the library too and so we chose 'Maleficent' this time; for a very reasonable sum of £1.55, you can borrow a DVD for up to 7 days... that's at least 4 viewings of a great family film! Just need to stock up on popcorn!

Tonight's tea was my eldest's choice - Macaroni Pasticcio. Ours might not look as good as the picture but so long as everyone enjoys, that's all that matters!

Hope you are all enjoying the start to the half term break - I just hope the rain leaves us along for a couple of days!

The Logo Board Game review and competition - great family fun!

Logo is a great and really popular game from Drumond Park. We were sent a copy of this family game to review and so here we are... we loved it! The game is suitable for ages 12 and up; both of my children are younger than this but being from a family who love board games, we played with my children being on the 'team' of their choice! Needless to say, I lost out on an extra team member and Nanny and Grandad both gained a bit of extra help!

So, the principle of the game is simple - answer brand-related questions with either pictoral clues, themed clues or just pot luck whilst racing your way to the Winning Zone at centre of the board. The first player (or team, in our case!) to answer their question correctly whilst in the Winning Zone wins! The no die aspect of the game confused my children at first as they LOVE to roll the die(!) but they loved it just as much when they were able to jump their counter a huge way to the next appropriate coloured space!

Overall, we loved the game. To be honest, we're not huge TV watchers and the last time we saw an advertising bill board was probably before Christmas when we took a trip to a large city for some shopping and family-visiting so I had a slight worry that I wouldn't know any of the answers! But, we were fine.... many of the subjects are classic brands and the trivia questions great! Often the answer is on the tip of your tongue and you just can't remember what it is!

The King of Board Games (my Dad) won... of course! Along with his side kick of my daughter... who strategically seemed to swap teams throughout the game, depending on who was winning at the time! It didn't take too long to play and as the questions are varied, the game is fun right to the end!

Logo is available at all major toy retailers (online and instore) and retails at £32.99 but if you can't wait to have a go, why not download the official Logo board game app from the App Store (iPhone and iPad only)? It's free and is published with approval from all the contributing companies. You could even brush up our knowledge ahead of the family challenge... then everyone will be begging to be on YOUR team!

You can keep up with new game releases from Drumond Park on their Facebook page here and join in with the board game conversation at Twitter here.

So, for your chance to win a copy of this game to play yourselves, just complete the Rafflecopter entry below! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Foooz Pro Match Set Game Review - Drumond Park

Table football without the table!  This game's great for travel as it can be played anywhere!  Any reasonably flat surface can suffice as a football pitch - in fact the lumps and bumps of a duvet cover in bed can add to the skill and difficulty level!

Foooz Pro Match Set from Drumond Park games is great for any football fan.  Living by the rules of  "no football in the house" this certainly breaks all the rules!   Grab your Foooz figure and with a single twist you can shoot it, bend it, chip it and blast the ball, just like your favourite footballers!

With 2 players, 2 goals and 2 balls, this is the ideal game for a playdate or family game to keep the children entertained - my son and daughter enjoyed playing the game and loved the fact that it's fully transportable!  This will definitely be something to take along when visiting family from far and wide over the Christmas holidays.  Small and compact but lots of fun!

You can play the game in various ways - as a traditional table-style football game, as a skills try-out using the template for winning points as the goals are scored or individual practice to perfect your game.  Even hubbie was impressed, even though he's not a big football fan.  They were able to design the kits for each player thanks to the choice of stickers in the pack.

The inner cardboard insert provides a great background for the goal area (and helps to catch balls that run astray with any missed goals - less lost balls!)

Once you have got to grips with the Foooz Pro Match Set (priced at £19.99), you can up your team numbers with a couple of Challenge Sets (£9.99), each of which contain another player with all the ‘trimmings’, and a goal.

The game is suitable for ages 5 and up - I think that this is an accurate reflection of age suitability, my son is 5 years old and really enjoyed the game.  And, great news, there's no upper age limit so get Granny and Grandad involved in the action too!

***DISCLAIMER***

We were sent this product for free on the understanding I would write an honest review of what I thought about the product. I received no payment and the review is my own honest and unbiased opinion of the product and I retain full editorial control and integrity

"Deadly 60 Tracker" Board Game Review from Imagination

"Deadly 60"... the popular BBC children's TV show which draws the parents in too!  Wildlife presenter, Steve Backshall tracks down 60 of the world's deadliest animals and shows you what they are capable of!  The Deadly 60 Tracker board game from Imagination Games enables you, the player, to track down the animals yourself completing challenges by the roll of a die and collecting essential items for the adventure.

It's a creepy, crawly and crazy game where each player is given a ‘deadly animal’ to track down, and you must race around the board to track the animal down. With plenty of danger lurking, you have to take risks to beat off your opponents. The first player to successfully track down three Deadly 60 animals wins the game!  This really is a fun family game to play, great for the festive season or anytime throughout the year!

We've played the game a few times and it was a hit with my daughter and her friends at a sleepover last weekend.

Try to land on the blue squares to receive essential items or take a risk with the red squares... complete the challenges to be awarded item cards but fail the challenge and lose items that are necessary for your adventure!  The choice is yours, play it safe and steadily build up to your target or take a chance but beware!!!

In the game pack, there's a handy leaflet with fantastic "deadly" facts about 30 of the world's deadliest animals... a great start point for further research for inquisitive minds - on the CBBC website there are bags of information and online games that expand on the Deadly 60 games.  Have a look and you never know, one day you could be on safari with your child tracking the animals down for real!

The game is aged at 8 years old and above - this is set appropriately as my daughter was able to play this with her friends without an adult "interfering"!  Up to 6 players can take part so ideal for larger families or when you have vistors over the holiday period!

The only difficulty we had was finding the green die on the board when it decided to camoflauge itself... all part of the fun though!

There are three Deadly 60 games in the series from Imagination Games...

Deadly 60 Board Game (RRP £14.99)

Deadly 60 Ruckus Card Game  (RRP £4.99)

Deadly 60 Trivia Box (RRP £7.99) 

All available from Amazon, WH Smiths, Tesco and other good retailers- watch out for them this Christmas!

"Carol Vorderman's Mathable Junior" by Wooky Entertainment Game Review

Not every child loves Maths but with a game like "Carol Vorderman's Mathable Junior" you can make learning fun!  This game was sent to my family to review from Wooky Entertainment.  It states that the game is suitable for ages 5 and up but to be honest, with all the best will in the world, there's no way you could give this game to a small group of 5 years olds to give yourself an hour of peace and quiet!  At least one adult has to play to help the younger ones with their sums if needed!

Once we had got our heads round the instructions, the game was pretty easy to play - there are only a few simple rules to obey and so once all the children have understood those, it's pretty straightforward.

My son was pleased that he could join in with the game as he's only 5 and often has to go on someone's "team" in order to have chance of winning anything!

The aim of the game is to place your tiles onto the board adjacent to 2 tiles already place to complete a sum - either addition or subtraction.  For example, if there is already a "4" and a "6" on the board (next to each other), you could place either a "10" or a "2" in the adjacent square, with your score being the result of the sum you have just performed.  Sounds a bit complicated, but in practice it's easy to follow.  There are special squares resulting in additional rules but I won't go into that now - when playing it's obvious what to do regarding the additional rules - cross that bridge when you come to it!

The handy number line from 1-20 on the edge of the board is very helpful when working on the sums and deciding where to place the tiles - with older children and adults(!) you could use a bit of skill and strategy if there's a choice of where to put the tiles.  We played at a simple level with my youngest by just placing the tiles where he could recognise where they would go - even if there was a higher scoring spot available!

The reverse of the board had a different game to play - still number based with addition and subtraction the key to the game but with a different scoring system.   Here, you must match your tile to the spaces on the board whilst also completing equations of addition and subtraction.

When playing with my youngest child, we swayed away from the words "equations" and "subtraction" saying instead, "adds and adds" and "take aways"!  With my 8 year old, we used the correct wording and she was fine.  Also, second time round of playing there was much less confusion and no tears!

As a bi-lingual family, this game can be played in any language as the board consists of only numbers and symbols.... whether you're using "one", "un" or "uno" the game works!

The game is endorsed by Carol Vorderman - even though she has gone on to do many other things in her career, Countdown and the number's game is one of her most famous roles.  So hopefully, she will be helping to develop the next generation of mathematicians!

The adult and older child version of the game "Mathable" includes division and multiplication and is available for download and as an app for use with iPad as well as a traditional board game - when I join the iPad generation (hint hint!) this is one app I'll be downloading for sure!

An advantage of games by Wooky Entertainment is that you are able to download a PDF file of the instructions in the event (likely or unlikey!) that you may lose the instructions that come with the game!

***DISCLAIMER***

We were sent this product for free on the understanding I would write an honest review of what I thought about the product. I received no payment and the review is my own honest and unbiased opinion of the product and I retain full editorial control and integrity

"It's A Chicken" Game Review - Paul Lamond Games

This was a great game gladly received by our family to review from Paul Lamond Games.  It is suitable for ages 5 and over - great for our family as we can all join in!

The basis of the game is to draw pictures as directed by the card chosen from the draw pile (no pun intended!) - the first to guess the picture being drawn wins the round and gets the number of points as determined by the timer (clucking chicken, noisy egg timer!).  The cards very handily have 3 sections - a picture to copy for the younger players who cannot read, a medium-difficulty picture prompted by a word and a more tricky picture again prompted by a word.  A roll of the die determines the level of difficulty - however you can play to suit the age of the players.  We've played just using the pictures as a guide to copy... but also when bedtime came and play was reduced to Mums/Dads and Grandparents, we used the difficult pictures and still had great fun!

As a helping hand, the game sheets have circles ready printed on them as a base for starting the drawing - a great help for the younger players although some shapes had one or two of the parents flummoxed - funny how our minds work differently than the children's!

Here's examples of my son's artistic creations.... apologies for the expression on his face...he had had a long day at school!

He's only 5 so right at the lower age range for this game but really enjoyed the fact that he could join in with no adult help!  Complete gaming independence here we come!

I can see this game making an appearance at family dinners as a children's favourite... from an educational point of view, it's great to encourage and develop pencil control and reading skills but still having fun at the same time!

Just a side note... you need to buy batteries separately and there aren't any pencils in the box but the little wooden pencils from blue and yellow homeware's shop work great :)  A postive note, from a "thinking ahead" point of view, there are plenty of sheets of paper with the starter shapes on them, but also on the back of the instruction there are blank templates so that you can photocopy more when required...a never-ending supply of peace and quiet (broken every now and again by the clucking of a rather loud chicken!).

Paul Lamond games are available at Smyths Toys Superstores, online or instore.  Have a look at their range of games - there's something for everyone this Christmas!