My 4 year old boy is mad about maths and numbers, so when he saw this Mathable Junior game he was really excited and immediately wanted to play.
It is a 2 in 1 board game, with a different version on each side of the board and comes complete with 60 number tiles, 4 tile holders, an instruction booklet and of course the board itself.
When you first look at the board it is immediately noticeable that it has some similarities to a scrabble board, and the game is like an adaption of the popular game scrabble but changing it from letter and words into maths and numbers. The rules involve adding or subtracting two numbers next to each other on the board, to get an answer which allows you to place one of your tiles. It seems to be a fairly simple concept and my 4 year old was able to grasp it with some guidance. The number tiles go up to 20, so the game requires the child to be able to do addition and subtraction only up to a total of 20.
The recommended age group is 5-9 years, which seems about right as my 4 year old needed a little guidance but a child of 5-9 may be able to play this game among themselves without needing an adult, depending on their ability.
My little boy really enjoyed it, and kept asking to play it again, and when his aunty came over he got it out and got her to play it with him too.
The game play was longer than I expected, it seemed to last about one hour to use up every single tile, but it kept his attention all that time and he wanted to play it again straight after. I would say for an adult its not the most exciting of games to play but for a child who enjoys maths they will really enjoy it and I felt it had a lot of educational value. My son is in reception year at school and I’m sure this game will be reinforcing the type of things he must be learning in school.
I have seen there are various other Mathable games available in the range, for older children. So those will be something to look out for in a few more years once my son has outgrown this one. There is ’Mathable’, ‘Mathable Deluxe’, ‘Mathable Quatro’ – a card game, and even a Mathable game book, and perhaps even more that I have not come across, so it is quite a good range for whatever age or ability of child you have. But for the younger maths enthusiast like my son, Mathable Junior is definitely a good option combining fun and learning!
Available to purchase from Amazon.co.uk RRP £14.99
This review was originally written for Mummy News and the product was provided through them, as I am one of their team of reviewers.