Today I would like to introduce you to the company called Educational Insights based out of Southern California. Educational Insights is the manufacturer of playful products with serious educational value, including subject-specific classroom products, teacher resources, educational toys, and games. Their products are designed by seasoned educators & parents who know that children love to learn when you make that learning experience fun!

When you visit the Educational Insights online web site you will find that it’s really easy to navigate. The web site has three tabbed categories which are the sections for Parents, Teachers and Classroom Jeopardy. Since I am a mother and grandmother…I could spend hours just browsing around their parent’s section of the web site.

My Review: The great folks over at Educational Insights sent us their Checkmath game to review for all of you. This game includes a numbered game board, 20 double-sided numbered bamboo tiles and the instruction guide. The game is for ages 8 and up and you will need 2 players to play the game. For this game review I enlisted the help of my two nephews who are ages 10 and 12 years of age and the boys love checkers and chess so I thought this would be a great game for them to review.

How To Play: Players place their numbered tiles on the numbered spaces on either side of the board. They then take turns advancing their tiles one at a time to any space in the next row that is a multiple of the number on the tile that they are moving. If the tile lands on a multiple shared by your opponent and you capture that opponent’s tile. The first person to capture all of their opponent’s tiles will win the game.

I invited the boys over after school to play the game and spent about 10 minutes reading the instructions to them and demonstrating on the board how the game is played. The 10 year is in checkers club at school and the 12 year old is in chess club at school so let me tell you…they understood this game better than I did! LOL I sat there and watched them play and it was really interesting to see how good they both are in math. The game took them about 45 minutes (not including instruction time) to play and both boys enjoyed the game! After taking a 30 minute snack/beverage break…they actually sat down to play it again. I don’t think the 12 year old was too thrilled that the 10 year old beat him the first time so it was GAME ON and REMATCH for the second game which tied it up. I did let the boys take the game home with them so that they could break the tie breaker at home. My brother told me about a week later that the boys love the game and have played it at least 10 times since bringing it home.

Overall Impression: This is a fabulous game which teaches kids math skills that they need and it constantly has them using those math skills to play the game. I love that the instructions are printed on the back of the box so you don’t have to worry about losing an instruction sheet. This educational game was entertaining and fun for them to play and we highly recommend this game to you. We give it a huge 2 thumbs up!

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I would personally like to thank Educational Insights for sending me the product(s) to review here on the TCC Blog.

Disclaimer: Shelly has personally reviewed the product listed above. Shelly has not received any monetary compensation for her review. Shelly did receive a free product to try out so she could evaluate and use it for her review. Her thoughts & opinions in this review are unbiased & honest and your opinions may differ.  Copyright 2010-2011, All Rights Reserved.