Brainbox

Brainbox is a great game because it’s fun.  (My daughter Isabel just wrote my lead.)

It’s by far the favorite of our new games for Christmas.  The kids like it, and play extremely competitively.  The game moves fast, because you’re on a 10 second timer.  Sam’s old enough to

It's a great game because it's fun

read the questions, and sometimes reading helps in the game as well.  Isabel is still not reading yet, but it’s mostly pictures and we give her the easiest questions.

There are cards which represent different countries.  They have a map, the capital city, the flag, some iconic figures here and there – a flamenco dancer from Spain, an orchid from Costa Rica, a girl on a scooter in Italy.  Then you roll the eight-sided dice – a bit of an unnecessary novelty – and answer the corresponding question on the card, like “what color hair does the girl on the scooter have?” or “how many beer steins are in the picture?” (that was Germany)

We are a nerd family.

I like the game because it teaches them a bit about geography but it’s mostly a memory game, like Pexeso.  The key is how much you can remember from the card you’ve just seen.  The beauty of games like this is that kids and grownups are on an exactly equal level.  We may know more, we may have more facts at our disposal, but kids are our equals in raw intelligence.

I think that’s an important thing for all teachers to remember.