Brain Spice News, Reviews, and Recommendations.

Feed your mind.

If you were to ask me to choose just one recommendation for a gift for a child or teen, Jungle Hide & Seek would be at the very top of my list. I’m talking list point number one.

My reasons? Literally everything about this puzzle makes me want to recommend it. It’s one of those perfect puzzles which really does tick all the boxes. If you’ve played it, you’ll know what I mean.

To play, select a challenge from the challenge book. You must then work out where to place the four puzzle pieces so that the featured animals in that challenge are showing, while the rest of the animals are hidden.

The puzzle sounds simple, but the further into the challenge book you go, the more difficult it becomes.

The Online Classroom is an educational resource which I’ve used in our homeschooling plan for years now. It’s a series which I highly recommend for both homeschooling and the classroom setting.

I’ll explain the History series in this post, however there’s also the Online Classroom Geography series and the Online Classroom Mammals series, which are both just as wonderful.

The Online Classroom series is incredibly easy to follow, allowing for open-and-go learning with little to no preparation needed, or alternatively you can use it as a base to plan a more elaborate program with excursions and further learning added.
Either way, the series is fully curriculum-linked.

Multispin is a fun maths game, designed specifically to help students practice their multiplication skills.

Multispin has been designed by Dr Paul Swan, who is fantastic at thoroughly teaching maths concepts by including as many games and hands on activities as possible. (And he’s from right here in Western Australia!)

Quadrillion is a challenging one player puzzle game for all ages - suitable for kids, through to the elderly - with big, sturdy puzzle pieces that are easy and fun to handle.

It’s fun from the very beginning - even the setup is a puzzle!

A few years ago, a fellow homeschool Mum hosted a workshop, where she taught other homeschool parents how to teach their kids maths in such a way that kids actually felt inspired by the subject rather than dreading it.

For me, this was my lightbulb moment...

Kingdomino is an award winning tabletop game for kids.

Along with skills such as strategic decision making, turn taking, patience, and puzzle solving, Kingdomino also teaches maths concepts and skills...and it’s also FUN!

Playing Kingdomino is like completing a puzzle. The game can be competitive, but it’s also a mindful activity.

If you like puzzles, or Dominos/Triominos, Honeycombs is a fun kids game which you will love.

One thing I love about this game is that often kids who struggle with the more traditional academic subjects, such as reading and writing, tend to love this game. Their minds often work in such a clever way that they can find patterns, problem solve, and come up with solutions that others wouldn’t think of. Watching these kids play a game like Honeycombs - it’s like watching magic happen.

There’s multiple ways to play, including a competitive option, a cooperative option, and even a mindfulness option! All easy to learn, set up, and ready to play within about a minute.

Sometimes a game is able to be played by the whole family, but it’s not something that adults will choose to play once the kids are in bed. Or sometimes it’s a good game for kids and adults, but the younger kids will have a hard time with the rules.

Qwixx isn’t like that.

Qwixx is ACTUALLY fun for the whole family.

For kids to play, for kids and parents to play together, for adults, for grandparents. Everyone will love this game no matter their age.

Think Yahtzee, but quicker, better, and much more fun.

And homeschoolers, teachers, and parents, this is where you will love it even more…

THIS IS A GREAT MATHS GAME for teaching quick addition up to 12, number recognition, number ascending/descending order, chance, and general addition.

Whenever we take our game of Tenzi to a games night, it’s always the Tenzi table which ends up with lots of cheering and laughter… and after every game, there’s at least one person yelling “Nooooo I was SO close!!! Let’s play again!!!”

It’s fantastically easy, and a super quick game to play. You can learn the rules in seconds.