sumoku

Jan 14, 2014

Last night for Family Home Evening, or FHE as it is often known in Mormon land, we had a short spiritual thought from Sermons in a Sentence, my new favorite get-me-thinking book, and then family game night. We love playing games together, but rarely have we had this much fun. We laughed ourselves silly.

Drumroll : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Blythe played with us! I know those of you have played games with us before are shaking your heads in disbelief because she usually refuses to play any games and prefers to draw over in the corner, but I pinky swear, it is true!

AND SHE WON! Yes, she beat me! 288 to 256! Go Blythe GO!

This girl that says she “hates math” played not only a board game with her family, but a math game! This, my friends, is a banner day to be recorded in memoriam forever!

I bought Sumoku a few weeks ago as the next step up in Fisher’s math game progression. He learns best by playing games so I am always on the lookout for games the two of us can play together. I thought it would be perfect for him. It turns out it was a little confusing for him last night, but I think if just the two of us play without the crazy loudness of the girls it will be a great fit.

It is kind of a twist of Qwirkle (another huge favorite here!) and Scrabble and is chock-full of heaps of math! Best game ever!

There are tiles with numbers on them with six different colors and each row or column can only have one of each color in it. At the beginning of the game a die is rolled and whatever number turns up is THE number for the whole game – all columns and rows must add up to a multiple of that number. Then your score is the sum of all the numbers in the row or column you played on. So much calculation! I, being the number lover, expected to love it, and I did. I wasn’t so sure how my children with less of a number affinity would enjoy it, but they did as well so as Kat would say, WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!