We are on our third straight week of rain. Third. Straight. Week. Baseball cancelled. A lot of books read. Many half-baked ideas executed in the name of boredom.
Thank you, Blue Orange, for sending games.
Two new Blue Orange games came in the mail, and we spent the night shouting out how many strawberries we saw on the card and transferring marbles between beakers…
Actually, let me back up for a second.
Fast Flip is a great twist on their ever-popular game, Spot It. You flip over the top card so you now have two cards in play: One showing either a fruit or a number, and the other showing a picture of jumbled fruit. Instead of trying to find the image the two cards have in common (as you do in Spot It), you have to figure out either how many copies of a designated fruit is on the card (5 strawberries!) or which fruit appears the number of times that matches the number.
This game is best with a parent serving as the judge to make sure the person calls the correct answer. If you get it wrong, you have to sit out the rest of the round. So go quickly… but not too quickly.
Side note: This game is fantastic because you can throw it in your bag and always have a game at the ready for when you’re stuck waiting somewhere. I used to carry around Spot It, and the cute triangular tin makes it easy to take it with you for down time.
Dr. Eureka was the big winner in our house. It’s a Tower of Hanoi puzzle… with marbles and beakers. A word of advice: Play on the carpet. We tried this game on the kitchen table, and while it led to about five minutes of hysterical laughter as the marbles rolled off the table and around the kitchen floor, the game was a lot easier to manage from the carpet.
You begin with three beakers, each containing two green marbles, two red marbles, and two purple marbles. You then flip over a card and have to make the marbles in your beakers match the picture on the card. You have to pour them between beakers, which means you’re not just processing how to solve this Tower of Hanoi-like puzzle, but you have to carefully pour the marbles without spilling them on the aforementioned floor. The first person who solves five puzzle cards wins.
This is the perfect game for a group, and I love that it tested both fine motor skills AND puzzle solving skills. You may be the most mathematically-minded, but if you don’t have a steady hand, you’ll lose your marbles.
Both games were a lot of fun, and we’ll take them to the beach this summer since they’re easy to transport and good for groups. Thank you, Blue Orange, for saving our day!
