Category: reviews

Great game, relationship between resources and communities, also involves probability/odds in determination of resources. Instead of Catan, could easily call the game Settlers of Jamestown for a US History class for example.

These are books covering every conceivable military campaign of history or army of history. The value comes from the brevity of the books, the conciseness of detail, and the photographs and color artwork that accompany the text. The research behind the books tends to be first-rate as well. If not used directly or made available to students, they can supplement knowledge in areas you feel you as a teacher need help with.

Nice easy word game. The caution would be with older kids who could try and push the limits of word choices, but that is a rare problem. It is also easy to make your own cards for the game.

Players look at cards and try and form words from the letters on at least three cards. First to blurt a word gets those cards. Simple, fast, affordable.

It is essentially a 4-player chess variant.

It looks pretty and will have some critical thinking issues: do you press on with exporation or go back and claim your fame and hope no one else finds other, more famous things. Similar to “Source of the Nile” by Avalon Hill.

This is a free-form role-playing/game system. It has scenarios for every time period and can recreate history or be used to get into characters. Ideal as the only additional equipment necessary is a single six-sided die. Games are not repetitive—even with same players. Highly recommended for use once you understand how they work/have experience with them (and still good otherwise). Hamster Press is good answering questions and with support material.

Better to tweak the rules and emphasize the creation of things and the riddles. Be prepared to provide extra play-doh or model clay!

Requires some cooperation and centers around the building of an international space platform. Can be played on a standard school desktop.

The value is in the use of the cards. 36 possible results along with the various on-base situations allows calculation of possible results and probabilities. The statistics for likelihood of each on-base situation are researchable. This would work with moderate to high level math classes. Students could recreate player abilities/make their own cards by researching past baseball season stats.