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Totally Gross: The Game of Science is available on Amazon HERE.
My family has always loved board games so using them in our homeschool was a natural fit but finding good educational games isn’t nearly as easy as one might think.
The Christmas toy catalogs and my FaceBook feed are always filled with fun, trendy board games for the family including new versions of classics {Transformers Memory} and weird, silly things {Exploding Kittens} but it’s very rare to find educational games being promoted outside of homeschool catalogs. And, if you’re like me, when I am pouring over a big stack of homeschool catalogs, it’s agonizing enough to find the right curricula choices. I have no extra brain energy to find fun educational games too.
So, let me make it easy for you and share some of our favorite educational games!
In addition to reviewing the
FUN FACTOR and the
EDUCATIONAL VALUE, I will also include info on the
ORGANIZATIONAL COMPONENT {because I cannot stand messy, broken down game boxes or games that include 8,000 pieces which then escape those boxes},
TIME COMMITMENT {because who has two hours to play a game on a Tuesday morning},
CLARITY LEVEL {because tears from the kids or Mom equals no fun}
and an OVERALL SCORE.
NAME: Totally Gross
PUBLISHER: University Press
CATEGORY: Science
SUB CATEGORY: General
TIME COMMITMENT: Moderate {30+ minutes}
PLAYERS: 2-4
HOW TO WIN: Be the first to score ten points, then land on the LAB space and complete one small, short, simple lab experiment.
CLARITY LEVEL: ♥♥♥♥♥ The instructions are concise and clear. The game is very simple and they keep the instructions simple as well. As is with many games, you learn a lot by just playing it. We read through the instructions once and then just got started. As we came across something we didn’t understand, we just quickly looked up the answer. ♥♥♥♥♥
FUN FACTOR: ♥♥♥♥♥ This is a super duper fun game! When it arrived from Amazon in October, I’ll admit I was a wee bit sad that I needed to hide it away until Christmas because the colorful box with silly directions made it look very enticing. And, when my son chose to play this during our first day back to school in January, I was NOT disappointed in the amount of fun it had to offer! It was well worth the wait! True to the title, it is TOTALLY GROSS at times but it’s all in the name of science so my son was granted loads of flexibility in ignoring our typical manners {sniffing pits, burping the ABCs and listening to one another’s tummy sounds were among the GROSS OUT challenges.} My son is 13 so is the prime age for TOTALLY GROSS fun but it really would work for ANYONE! My 77 year old mom lives with us and she witnessed us playing the first round and then requested to play the second round with us. And she had a blast too! I’m very confident that little kids would love it too! ♥♥♥♥♥
EDUCATIONAL VALUE: ♥♥♥♥♥ It’s not just TOTALLY GROSS fun! It’s also highly educational. Each player’s turn {no matter the type of card you draw} is an opportunity for learning a weird scientific fact. Yes, most of the facts are at least semi-GROSS but they all hold some level of educational value. My son, who LOVES science and plans on majoring in it, knew a lot of the info already but by no means did he know it all. {And I certainly did not.} But, even if he knew it, reading the fact and the why behind was still very educational and well worth the time we spent on the game. ♥♥♥♥♥
ORGANIZATIONAL COMPONENT: ♥♥♥♥♥ The box is sturdy and the pieces are high quality. I don’t always leave the cardboard inserts inside my game boxes because they can be more of a mess-maker than not but this one is sturdy enough that it actually adds to the overall organization. It would be nice if there was an individual bag for each stack of cards {so they don’t get mixed up when the game gets put away} but that’s easy enough to solve with little snack bags. ♥♥♥♥♥
OVERALL SCORE: ♥♥♥♥♥ This was a total hit with both my son and myself {and heck, my mom too!} It was loads of fun but also chock-full of educational value too. I would HIGHLY recommend this to families with kids of all ages! ♥♥♥♥♥
If you are ready to offer your kids a really fun way to learn some general science facts with a bit of hands-on activities mixed in, you can buy it here on Amazon.
If you would like to read detailed instructions {with pics,} continue on….
HOW TO PLAY:
1. Open box, unpack contents and sort the three types of cards.
2. Decide which person and color each player will be. Place that color on the top LAB spot.
3. Give each player a small glob of snot {aka: Slime.} Have each player knead it so it is good and stretchy.
4. Have each player place his/her snot on his/her person.
5. The youngest player is Player One. Player One rolls the die and moves clockwise that number.
6. If Player One lands on a colored bubble space, Player Two needs to draw the top card from the pile of Question Cards and read one of the questions out-loud. If Player One answers correctly, he/she earns the number of points found on the colored bubble {1, 2 or 3}. He/she then moves her snot that many spots. Turn is over.
7. If Player One lands on a Gross Out space, he/she is asked to do one of two tasks on the card. If the task is attempted, he/she gets one point and moves his/her snot one spot. Turn is over. The task can also be turned down which just means no points are given and the turn is over.
8. If Player One lands on a Lab space, nothing happens and his/her turn is over.
9. Player Two rolls the die and repeats steps 6-8.
10. Play repeats until at least one person reaches 10 points of snot.
11. When that happens, that player keeps playing until he/she lands on a Lab spot. At that time, the player needs to draw the top Lab card, complete the lab experiment and then wins the game!
{Above is the winning lab experiment! David had to wrap the TV remote in tin foil and see if it would still turn the TV on/off….then the dog needed to check it out, ha ha!}
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