I am excited to bring you another Home School Review from Timberdoodle today! What I will be sharing with you today is a math game called Tenzi as well as the Tenzi Card Deck. These two products are sold separately, but they are also included in Timberdoodle's complete 2nd Grade Curriculum Kit. Having taught 2nd grade in the classroom previously, I was very interested to see what I thought--but considering I am currently home schooling a 6th grader, I didn't really expect my daughter to be interested in Tenzi.
I was wrong! Ever since we opened this game up, my daughter has been activity looking for a willing victim--I mean, family member--to play with her. :)
The Tenzi Game itself comes with an instruction sheet that explains how to play nine different game variations. But if you are interested at all in the game itself, I would definitely recommend purchasing the Tenzi Card Deck along with it. There are just SO many more fun games you can play! According to the box the cards come in, there are seventy-seven different ways to play using the Tenzi Card Deck. No, I did not count to see if they are right--I decided to take their word for it!
I really like that there is a card encouraging kids to make up their OWN Tenzi game idea!
Some of the cards are very simple--showing number patterns that the players have to roll and match in order to win the game.
I am not a "high speed" kind of person, and there are non-speed game ideas for people like me! There are also plenty of "speed" game variations, for people like my daughter!
There are games that will help your child learn their skip counting by helping them learn their odd or even numbers.
And--while there are enough dice in the Tenzi Game for up to four players at a time, if you are playing with just two players and are like my daughter, you will talk the other person into playing with twenty dice each! I can barely hold the twenty dice to start rolling! But we had plenty of fun and giggles trying to get them all picked up!
Even Dad has been talked into quite a few Tenzi Games! There is one card that instructs to "Pick a favorite song and sing it while you're rolling for a TENZI." We haven't tried that variation yet, but I am going to have to try hard to ignore whatever song my daughter is singing so I can keep straight the song that I am singing!!!
I love all the variations of games suggested, and it is a fun way to help children learn good number sense. You could even make up games that were a little more challenging for older students--obviously my 6th grader loves it!
There is only one tiny thing that I don't really love--and I realize this is being picky, but in the instruction sheet for the Tenzi Card Deck there is a mild slang word used. In our family, we choose not to use the word "Heck," but this may not be a problem for other families. I just wanted to mention it as I am wanting to tell both what I like and what I may not like about any product I review. I have not so far seen any slang language in other parts of the game cards. Overall, this is certainly not going to keep us from loving and using Tenzi. And I have a little white-out correction tape that might find it's way onto part of the instruction sheet. . .
I hope you have enjoyed this Home School Review! Tenzi and Tenzi Card Deck definitely get an A+ from our family! I do think the lower elementary grades are the best place to use this in your home school, just like Timberdoodle is recommending by including it in their 2nd Grade Curriculum Kit. But it would be very easy to make a few changes to create more challenging games for older kids.
Now, if I could just drag my 6th grader away from Tenzi, it's time for her to go to bed!
~Susan
Disclaimer: I received this product free of charge in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.
