{Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the
HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not
required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other
way.}
As you know, we are a huge game family so we were so excited to try Math Sprint - The Mental Math Game from Byron's Games. You may remember our review of their Continent Race game earlier this year! Math Sprint - the Mental Math Game is a fun 2-8 player game geared for children ages 7+ to help improve math skills and specifically mental math.
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| Our new game! |
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| Our game contents |
What's included in our game? Our game includes instructions, a gameboard (it looks like a running track), 8 different colored playing pieces (they look like runners), 10 dry erase cards, 1 dry erase marker, and 258 playing cards (30 wild cards, 30 challenge cards, 106 multiplications and division cards, and 92 subtraction and addition cards).
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| A closer look at the gameboard. |
As you can see above, the gameboard has various game distances - 100m, 200m or 400m. If you are playing with various age groups, younger children can start closer to the finish line at 100m, while older or more advanced players start further back at 200m or 400m. Or you can choose to play a shorter game with everyone starting at 100m or a longer game with everyone staring at 400m. You get the idea! The gameboard also contains a few exercise drills mixed in for players to complete as they land on them - do 10 arm circles, do 10 jumping jacks, balance on 1 leg for 5 seconds, etc.
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| The runner pieces really look as though they are sprinting around the board. |
There are 8 lanes so 8 players can play at a time (or you can choose to play in teams for even more player participation). The pieces are brown, blue, purple, green, white, orange, yellow and pink. Each playing piece is associated with a specific runner with a specific hobby.
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| Meet the Runners |
Above you can see that the blue running piece is Crystal Reaction who enjoys chemistry, the purple running piece is Bootstrap Byron who enjoys solving Rubik's Cube and so on. I love the hobbies chosen! My kids do too 😉.
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| All the game cards |
As I previously mentioned, there are 258 playing cards broken into different types. Just like you can customize the game distance to suit your group, you can do this with the cards as well. If you are playing with younger kids, you may choose to only play with wild cards and the addition/subtraction cards. If you are playing with more advanced players or want a more challenging game, you may wish to add in the multiplication/division cards as well as the challenge cards. There are also blank dry erase cards and a marker that can be used to create your own math problems. I hope you can see that there is tons of flexibility in adapting this game to fit your needs and your specific players! I also want to note that the addition/subtraction and multiplication/division cards have two problems on each card. You choose one to read in the game but for even more advanced play, you could read both.
How do you play? Select your runner and starting distance and place your pieces on the gameboard. The first player draws a card and reads it aloud to the other players. This player is the "coach" for this round. They can choose to select 2 players to race and only they can answer the question, or they can open the question up for all players to participate. The player who solves the mental math problem first, advances their player 2 spaces. In the event of a tie, both players advance. Incorrect answers are not punished, they just stay put. If the coach draws a wild card, they move their own piece as directed. The next player draws a card and they are now the coach for this round. Play moves clockwise with players taking turns being the coach. The first player to race around to the finish line wins! That's the premise in a nutshell. The wild cards add a bit of chance into the game.
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| The wild cards have you move forward or backward depending on the card. |
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| The boys played this game together first in our family. |
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| F completing his arm circles during the game. |
C, F and G were the first in our family to play this game. G ended up starting the closest to the finish line and C started the furthest back. They only used the subtraction/addition cards and wild cards because F and G are so young. Instead of each of them drawing a card, I drew the cards for them and was the coach. If a wild card was drawn, whoever I was drawing for would either advance or move backward depending on the card. I was so impressed with how excited F and G were to play and honestly with how well they did.
What do we think? This is such a great educational resource to have! I love that it encourages kids to sharpen their mental math abilities as well as press through struggles they may have encountered in math operations. The kids enjoy it and think it's fun to play. We all love that we can adapt it and have lots of flexibility. We are thankful to add this to our homeschool resources and we will definitely continue to play this game throughout our school year and beyond.
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