Earthy Mama: SimplyFun Review

Thursday, July 23, 2015

SimplyFun Review

Vendor: SimplyFun

Product: Expanders

Age: 7+

Price: $34.00

About: SimplyFun is the creator of the game Expanders as well as Shape Whiz. For this review I got to try our Expanders. This game uses reverse addition, spatial reasoning, and critical thinking. The object of the game is finding numbers then the connecting numbers that add up to their sums. You want to cover the most of the board in order to win against your opponents. You may have one to four people playing this game. The game comes with the following: 1 mainframe, 6 double-sided circuit boards, 2 circuit board fillers, 4 sets of tokens, Expander token storage bag, and a rule book.

Each player has their own color of tokens so that no one gets confused on who they are. The tokens are see through which allows you to still see the number under it. This is great so you do not have to keep moving the tokens to see what numbers are under. The hardest part of the game is the first three moves that are required and to be done a certain way. After that you are free to move as you wish and expand any way you are able to.

Our Thoughts: I used this with my 10 and 9 year old. My 10 year old took off easily with this game but my 9 year old is dyslexic and has a harder time with things. She does not like to do school work unless it is fun or in game form so I really wanted her to like this. Turns out she did great too. She loved the fact that it is competitive with her sister and they can block each others moves if they can expand their numbers in front of someone elses move. The object of the game being you need to fill the mainframe made her have a goal to get it done quickly. It allowed her to use her math skills and work on going quicker with adding.

The directions are clear and easy to follow. The game is a bit versatile with bigger numbers for easier game and smaller numbers for a tougher game. What is better than having a game to teach your children with and for them to learn with? This would work well for any child that knows their addition facts. This could work as a family game or for homeschool game. Really anyone that needs or wants some fun with Math. We will continue to use this game and hopefully move up to Shape Whiz soon as well.

As always, be sure to check SimplyFun out on the social media links below. Also follow along with my other crew members and read their experience with Expanders as well as the ones that reviewed Shape Whiz.