Kids' game review: Monkey Math

I'm all for games that teach us something, and my girls at the ages they are (5yrs 2 months and 3 years 8 months) don't have a lot of patience when it comes to games - they're just not at the right age for most games!

Examples:
Snap can only be played one-on-one for example and UNO - I'm surprised the house didn't combust with the dramas with that one - there is a reason it says 7 and up on the packet!

Monkey Math is actually a good game for them to collaborate - and the first game we played worked, but as we played on - impatience won out and I now think it's for one player ideally, and two players of the same age secondly... not more.  It's great for those parents with kids going to school soon or just started school - I would say 4-7 years.

How it works

The monkey is like a scale, there's bananas of all denominations (1-10) and you can balance them on each side to see what makes up a number on the other arm.

i.e. a bunch of 1, and a bunch of 2 and a bunch of 4 bananas balances a bunch of 7 bananas.

How we played it with three kids

Each child got 5 sets of bananas, we'd have turns putting bananas on the scales, and when it balanced, we took off both sides, counted up the bananas and saw they balanced.   Then, with Eloise I took it one step further and we put them back on, but I hid one of the bunches of bananas.  She worked out which one was missing.

Pros
Very literal understanding of mathematics.  Great for conceptual development of maths, and fun too!  Cheap at $7.70 from Educational Experience

Cons
Probably only a game to play for about 15 minutes at a time (but they'll go back to it in pairs or individuals), there can be fighting over who puts on/takes off the bananas !

Be a Fan

Print this post in friendly format