Friday, May 29, 2015

Thinkfun STEM Robot Turtles Board Game for Little Programmers

Robot Turtles is a clever and fun board game where kids have fun playing and yet at the same time they are learning programming concepts that they could potentially use as future software engineers.

The game is colorful and well made with beautifully made cards. The cards provide simple actions such as move forward, turn left, turn right, shoot laser. To play, the player uses the card to write code that essentially provides directions to the computer (aka parents) to move their turtle pieces to the gem.

For young players you simply just see who can move their turtle to their gem first. For more advanced play you can set up the board with ice and wood obstacles. The programmer will then have to write code to instruct the computer to navigate the turtle around or shoot through the obstacles to get to the gem.

There is also a bug card where you can 'undo' your last move by hitting the bug. This is a good way to show that bugs are errors that needs to be corrected in order for the program to complete it's mission.

This game teaches kids to think logically in order to provide the code/instructions to their turtle's computer.

We play the simple basic version with my daughter and she loves the noises we make whenever the turtle gets stuck. She even takes turns being the computer and moves the turtles according to our code.

I like how the board game allows the family to play together without the use of any electronics or fancy gadgets. It allows for a lot of back and forth conversation as the players plots out the moves and the computer responds to it.

I think it's a great game for kids 4 to 12. After playing it I can see how it is the most backed board game in KickStarter history. I got my copy at Amazon. Check out the video below to see it in action!


Saturday, May 9, 2015

Primary Dolch Sightwords with Avengers Mini Figures

See it, hear it, repeat. Learning sight words is a great way to get into reading. We have another video featuring the primary dolch sightwords. This time we have Avengers mini figurines in our surprise eggs!