Hunt for Mammoths, Learn World Geography

We dove into this game today and came back up with much more knowledge about world geography in our back pockets.  Even more than the premise of the game, I am very impressed by the sturdiness of it’s playing pieces and game board.  Wow.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a company pay attention to this level of quality for intended longevity.  Right there I got a feeling that the game creators cared about helping kids learn, not just about making money.

We played the game twice today.  It tailors well to visual learners, too, because it offers the option of recognizing countries via their animal symbols along with their names.  Nice touch.  The game is really two games in one, the first being a hunt around the board identifying countries as you go (African country locations are tricky ones to remember, which is yet another reason this game has value!)  Plus we learned where the Queen Elizabeth Islands are!  I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know where they were on the world map.  The second game involves a series of quiz cards, each containing three or four clues about a country.  This goes into a bit more depth rather than just locating them on the world map, which is a great next step.  That will be our next level of play once Max is more savvy about where countries are.   Plus there is plenty of information about animals found all around the world – unfortunately, no mammoths, though.  The mammoth in this game is a symbolic, cute big buddy to help you out when you need clues to locate a country.

Amazon seems to have the best price on this game; I saw it for as much as $40 elsewhere.  On Amazon at this writing it’s $23.00.  For ages 7 and up, 2 to 4 players, two variations of the game.  Plus, the company who makes this game, www.IQideas.com also has a treasure trove of other educational offerings to check out.