Educational Games: Dr. Eureka and Fast Flip

My kids love games and I totally get it, I remember playing board games with my siblings for hours on end – and loving every minute. We still play a heated game of Scrabble at Christmas every year to my husband’s amusement.

However, I can’t play more than a couple rounds of Candyland before I am all the way done. Roll the dice, move the avatar, repeat. Sure, it’s great for developing counting skills but that’s pretty much it. It’s hard for me to invest myself in a game that’s outcome is entirely random.

Enter Dr Eureka and Fast Flip: two new educational board games that pack a lot of learning opportunities as well as fun for both parents and kids. It’s like watching a Frozen instead of Barney. Everyone wins and even the parents get a laugh or two.

I have to admit, I actually got hooked into saying, “just one more card” about five times during Dr Eureka til a pot of water boiled over on the stove.

Each player gets three test tubes and three sets of balls in three different colours. They then flip a card and try to replicate the design in the picture without touching the balls or letting them drop. The pouring itself is trick, but after several rounds by five-year-old actually mastered it. I was impressed by how it challenged me intellectually but was still achievable by my preschooler.

My two-year old didn’t quite get it but we gave her some brightly coloured balls and tubes, which is pretty much all she needs in life.

The Fast Flip game was equally as fun for everyone. You flip a card from a stack and need to quickly count the fruits to match to a number, or quickly figure out which set of fruits equal that number.

I was super happy with the layout of the game since we’ve been working on counting numbers in chunks. Fast Flip makes a great game for some repetitive practice. It helps that the fruit icons are cute in a very Shopkins kind of way.

There are two additional games that can be played with a set of little round tokens that are also provided with the game, one is grabbing the corresponding token after you’ve figured out the answer instead of calling it out. This allows for endless variations of take-away and “head-starts” for older players.

These games and concepts are simple enough to be easily understood by preschoolers but involve enough mental challenge to keep them (and you) hooked (I mean interested) for hours. We really enjoy playing them.

Disclosure: I was gifted product for review consideration, this is however not a paid post and all opinions and views on this post are 100% my own.