Educational Insights has been making quality learning games and toys for kids for 50 years! I played with some of their toys growing up, and now have begun to acquire quite a few of their toys and games for my own children.
Today I’m excited to share with you yet another of Educational Insights wonderful learning/teaching products!
Space Faces is a game designed to teach players to pay close attention to details. Players sit around a board with 120 different alien faces (no two faces are alike). One player shakes the “alien identification device” which then selects the color of facial characteristics the players will look for (e.g., yellow face, purple nose, green eyes, blue lips). The first player to find the one and only alien that matches that description yells “SPACE FACE” and places one of their purple aliens on that face. If that is, indeed, the alien described by the alien identification device the player gets to add an alien to his rescue ship.
The game is designed for children ages 4 and up. However, I’m not sure that I know too many 4-year-olds who have 1) the patience to search through 120 alien faces, 2) the scanning skills that are needed to search through 120 alien faces without searching the same areas over and over again, and 3) the ability to remember the 4 different color facial characteristics of the alien they need to find.
My almost-4-year-old (who has a very good memory for his age) found this game very frustrating. Later, when The Husband was home, we played it again with Big Brother and The Husband on a team. That time around it was great! The game became a tool to teach big brother how to scan the board, in search of the alien, in an organized way.
While I think this game is excellent for teaching skills like scanning, memory (trying to remember the color of each facial characteristic when the colors change each “rescue mission”), and attention to detail, I think that it is better suited to kids ages five or six and older. I, myself, actually found this game challenging (when playing against The Husband :).
Space Faces would also be a great teaching tool for older children with autism, as it addresses many executive functioning skills that children with autism often lack or are behind on (e.g., working memory, attention span).
Right now, on their facebook page, Educational Insights is giving away a 3-day, 2-night trip for 2 to California and tickets to a live taping of Jeopardy! Head on over and enter for your chance to win!
Buy It:
You can purchase Space Faces from Educational Insights for $24.99.
Disclosure: I was provided with the above mentioned products by the company, at no charge to myself, in order to facilitate a review. The opinions expressed are honest and are entirely my own.
About Amy @ Oh So Savvy Mom
