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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

2/4/13: ThinkFun Swish Jr. and WordARound - Fun Games for Kids

 I love games that make kids think.  With the name ThinkFun you know your child will be thinking as they play.  Think is right in their name!  My kids got to try out a few fun games.  The first one is Swish Jr. See It! Stack It!
A Swish is created by layering two or more cards so every shape fits into the outline of the same shape and color.  This can be done with two cards or multiple cards.
The game comes with 42 transparent cool looking cards.  Swishes are found by visualizing the cards flipped/rotated to fit on top of another card.  It is played with 12 cards laid out on the playing surface.
Then players are supposed to call out the Swish and then put the cards together.  We modified the rules a bit as Lauren is younger, so instead we each took turns finding matches.  Once they found a match or three cards that could go together those cards were replaced from the remaining deck.
Here you can see an example of two cards layered.  As you can see the dot and flower line up.
I love that ThinkFun makes it easy to store their games.  The game comes with this cool little carrying case which makes it easy to bring with you.
I highly recommend this game.  My kids loved it and played many rounds and they are using visual and spatial thinking skills that are so important. 
 The other game my kids played is WordARound.
Anything that is a race is something my son loves.  Why not have your kids race to unravel words?  This game puts words in a ring.  There is a black ring, red ring, and blue ring.

It comes with 100 cards which equates to 300 words.  The challenge for the players is to figure out where the word starts on the ring.  If you call out the word first you turn it over and display the color for the next round.  The first person to collect 10 cards wins.

Since the game is intended for 10 and up I modified it a bit to help my kids.  They are still learning to read being in kindergarten and 2nd grade.  So I would tell them which letter the word started with and then they would read it to me.  This is great practice for them with words and it makes it fun.



Both Lauren and Evan had a lot of fun playing it.
So get your kids thinking and playing at the same time!
Check out other great games from ThinkFun on their Website.
Twitter: @ThinkFun or on Facebook here.
Disclosure:  I was provided these games for review purposes.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

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