I like using games to learn and review. However, most learning games are expensive, difficult to find, and complicated to use. I am thankful to review two Super Star Game Bundles, because these games are priced right, fun, and easy to use.
Our family received all eleven Super Star Games produced by Debbie Lot of Super Star Speech.
Each of the games came as a download and needed to be printed. We used cardstock for most of the printing and then ‘laminated’ the sheets with contact plastic and cut the game pieces out afterwards. (That’s much easier than ‘laminating’ each piece at a time.) I was astonished by how much the younger children enjoyed this prep work. They did lots of it, and I think that added to their enjoyment of the games.
Some of the games have a game board and need tokens and dice. Although you can print out the colored tokens that are included, we prefer to use whatever we have lying around. Other games just require the printable cards. Each game comes with clear instructions that we printed out on normal paper, folded up, and put into sandwich baggies with the cards.
Games we’ve played:
Explorers of the World (grades 3-8) can be used as a matching game with two levels of difficulty. The explorer card is matched with a card that has his dates and the location he explored. There’s also a timeline game using the cards. I wish we had used three different colors of cardstock to print these since there are three different kinds of cards to keep apart. We had a lot of fun with this game.
Planets, Moon and Stars (grades 3+) is made up of many statement cards, each with two possible answers. If the player gets the question right, he can choose a planet card. The goal of the game is to acquire all of the planets and put them in order. Miss 7 and Miss 9 enjoyed this game.
Silly Snails: Parts of Speech (grades 3-6) includes a game board and playing cards. You need to use your own tokens. Each playing card contains a sentence with one word in bold face, and you need to determine what part of speech that word is. Although this can be a short game, we added a rule that if there is no opportunity to move forward, you need to go backwards to the nearest correct square on the board. That added fun and excitement. Older children can enjoy this game as well.
Covering the Continents (ages 6-10) This includes a brightly colored world map as well as printable colored tokens. Since we print in black and white and since there was an error in the map (the author is now aware of it and will correct it), we just used an atlas for the map. As for the tokens, we used beads, bread bag tabs, and buttons. The point of the game is to associate facts with the appropriate continent in order to acquire more continents than the other players.
Games we plan to play this summer (when there is more time to really enjoy learning about the topics):
Colony Quest (grades 3-5) The goal of this game is to settle colonies by associating various facts with the correct colony. This game will be a learning experience for me as well as for the children, since I do not know much US history trivia.
Road to Revolution: An American History Game (grade 3-8) This colorful game has a game board as well as question cards. If a player answers a multiple choice history question correctly, he may roll a die and advance along the board. Again, for a Canadian, there’s a lot to learn here.
The Inventors Game (no grade level listed) This game is similar to the explorer’s game both in format and in its three options. Included is a handy list of inventions, inventors, and dates.
Games we plan to use next year (when we are studying these topics):
All About Animals(grades K-5) Each child gets his own colorful game board, and needs to cover it with picture cards (younger players) or fact cards (older players).
Climb the Vine: All About Plants (grades 3-6) Players advance their tokens up a vine as they correctly answer multiple choice questions about plants.
The Insect Game (grade 2-6) Children win insect parts by answering questions correctly. The goal is to assemble an entire insect. An easier version is available for younger players.
Games we have no plans for as yet:
Exploring Egypt (grades 3-8) Players climb a pyramid as they correctly answer multiple choice questions about Egypt. As expected in any study of ancient Egypt, several of the questions are about Egyptian gods.
Some Comments
We’re hesitating to print out Road to Revolution: An American History Game because it obviously requires colored ink and we’d rather not have the game in shades of grey. Several of the games had this color printing issue, and we would have preferred a color-yourself option for colored pages, rather than getting them in shades of grey. On the same note, the game board in Climb the Vine: All About Plants is obviously hand-colored; some of my children exclaimed indignantly when they saw that and said they would have wanted to color it themselves.
If the answers were in large, boldface type, it was occasionally possible to see them through the game cards, even though we printed them on cardstock.
The age and grade ranges are approximate, and older students and adults may enjoy the games as well. My teens and I did.
It’s a bit of a challenge to keep track of all of the game parts, but a fellow Crew member has some good hints.
Our Opinions
Our family enjoys these educational games, and I wish we had discovered them years ago.
Super Star Games are a great way to review material in an appealing way. They are affordable and easy to assemble. I think most homeschooling children would benefit from them. To see what other Homeschool Review Crew members thought, please visit the Crew blog.
Note that Debbie Lott, a licensed speech pathologist, also provides speech therapy resources. Many Crew members reviewed Super Star Speech products instead of the games. You can see their reviews at the Homeschool Crew blog as well.
To Purchase
These Super Star Games can be downloaded individually for $3.50 US each. The Super Star Games Science Bundle, a collection of all the science games, is available for $9.00 US, and the other games are available at a discount in the Super Star Games Bundle, for a cost of $14.00 US.
Disclosure Policy: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Review Crew, I received all of the Super Star Homeschool Games in exchange for our family’s honest opinions.
Thanks for your review! I enjoyed reading about what did and didn't work for your family and will keep your suggestions in mind as I revise the games in the future.
Debbie Lott