Letters, Trivia, and a Game Giveaway!

It’s time to rounding our our week of 7 kids board game reviews!

The first is a game for kids learning the alphabet and the second is for kids who think they know it all.

 

Sequence Letters

One of our favorite family board games is Sequence. It has been for a long time and it hasn’t let up. It’s a simple board game that accommodates a wide number of players while still being able to have conversations throughout play (meaning it doesn’t take a lot of concentration). We also love it because you play in teams.

Sequence Letters is a version of the very popular Sequence game but meant for 2, 3, or 4 players age 4 – 7 (those learning their alphabet). Players are still trying to get their colored chips in a row on the board. But with this smaller board, they only need to get 4 in a row to win.

Players start with a hand of letter cards and take turns playing a card and placing one of their chips on a picture on the board whose name begins with the letter they played. The cards are also colored so that players can check to make sure the color matches the color square in the space they’re playing on as well.

After playing a card and placing a chip, they draw another card from the deck and play progresses to the next player.

There are 2 special letters – the X and Z. The X cards let players remove one of their opponent’s chips from the board. The Z cards allow a player to place one of their chips on any space of their choice.

The first player (or team) to get 4 chips in a row, in any direction, is the winner.

Although we don’t have any kids in our family ages 4 to 7, we can see how Sequence Letters can be an enjoyable game for young kids. It gives them a chance to both learn their letters and plan out their moves. At that age kids enjoy finding things that match and they’ll enjoy the chance to look for matching items on the game board.

Since our kids are older, after we played the standard way, we made up our own rules that we could match letters to items on the board in creative ways. For example, the Saw is also a Tool, the Kangaroo is also a Marsupial, and the Frog is an Amphibian. Playing this way almost made every card a Z card for us and made for quite the back-and-forth games of blocking. It was actually kind of a fun way to play.

If you’ve got young kids, Sequence Letters can be a fun game to play while they familiarize themselves with the alphabet.

 

Kids Know Best

We know teenagers know everything, right?

We’ll what about younger kids – do they claim to know everything too?

Now it’s time to put it to the test in Kids Know Best.

The game comes with 165 cars, each with 6 different trivia questions on it. On one end are 3 questions for kids and on the other are 3 questions for adults. That’s 495 kids questions and 495 adult questions!

Players begin with their playing pawn on one of the Start spaces at the bottom of the board and answer questions to be the first to reach the Final space.

On a turn, the opposing player (or team) draws a card and reads the first question on the card (from the appropriate end – Kid or Adult). If the active player answers correctly, they move ahead 1 space and are asked the next question. If they answer all 3 questions on the card in row, they get to move 1 extra space as well. If they don’t answer correctly play goes to the next player.

If a player moves onto a space occupied by an opponent, they send the opponent piece backward 2 spaces. If playing in teams, when a piece lands on their teammate’s space, they can jump the active piece ahead 1 space.

There are also special spaces on the board:

• The Pop Quiz space lets a player move ahead 2 spaces if they get the next question correct. But if they answer incorrectly, the move back 2 spaces.
• The Final Exam space lets a player jump right to the end of the game and win if they get the next question correct. However, if they fail the Final Exam, the must move backward 3 spaces.

The first player (or team) to reach the end, wins the game.

Our family isn’t typically fans of trivia games. Mainly because of how obscure the questions can be. However, with Kids Know Best the variety of questions seem very relevant to family audiences.

That being said, as a dad I contend that this game totally favors the kids!

When I flip through the big deck of cards looking at the Adult side questions, there are plenty I could answer with ease. However, they’re often either the second or third question on the card. The problem is that you must first answer the first question correct before even being asked the additional questions. And I failed miserably in my numerous times playing (which always makes for happy kids).

Meanwhile our teenage kids really did seem to know everything – because they cruised through every game with ease. In one game, Caleb got a kick out of traversing the game board twice before I even made it half way up the board.

At first we also wondered why there were multiple connecting points on the board where players can choose different paths to take to the top. While it might seem obvious to take the most direct route to the top, we found that the options of landing on opponents’ pieces and bumping them backward makes for a good reason to choose different routes. (Or moving on a route so your opponents won’t be tempted to land on your piece…)

With as many cards as there are in the game, there’s plenty of replay value packed in Kids Know Best.

 

Kids Game Giveaway

And now that we’ve come to the end of our 7 kids board game reviews in 7 days, it’s time for a board game giveaway!

Now’s your chance to win a copy of Kids Know Best for your family!

Simply complete as many of the items below as you’d like to receive multiple entries into the contest. It only runs through November 6th, so don’t delay, enter today!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We’d like to thank Pressman Toy for review copies of Sequence Letters and Kids Know Best.