Chalk and Chuckles Smart Sticks Countries of The World Game, Gifts for 8-12 Year Old, Cool Learning Gift Idea for Teenage Boys & Girls

This was such a fun game/activity to do with my almost 6 year old granddaughter. It’s nice to have some things to do in the house now that the colder weather is approaching. I read the cards to her, but with time, and when she’s reading, she will be able to play this independently with her younger sister and friends. Love that we can do something interactive and not always on screen!

A great game, but I feel like the decided is an unnecessary gimmick that detracts from learning.

I work with a bunch of science types in the environmental field. We have a diverse background, but we're all pretty much nerds. I've been trying to help with overall morale around the office, so I've started silly little games and contests. This is perfect for my crowd. You get exactly what's described. It's all contained in a can about the size of a Campbell's Chunky Soup can. The lid pulls off and the spinner is embedded on top. You get a decoder to use for hints on some. The rest of the pieces are the "sticks" with the elements and trivia on them. Some are pretty easy and basic, others not so much. The spinner will land on yellow or red, and you pull accordingly. You will want to go through your sticks and make sure that a yellow or red bit is facing up. Otherwise, you're fumbling to find what you need. Really cool idea, and yes, a good way to learn if you have a classroom.

Kids love this, and use often as they cruise around the neighborhood on their golf cart. Keeps them occupied looking for new items! Great variety of things to look for.

The word cards are a nice thick quality. My grandson and I enjoyed playing this. It's good for all ages really. It's cold and rainy here so we haven't played outside yet. That will be fun and challenging.

Educational games are notoriously tough to design, as it is difficult to design something that can facilitate learning while still retaining fun game play. I appreciate the effort here, but it unfortunately falls a little flat. Upon opening the package, the first unfortunate thing I noticed is that there was already rust forming inside the top cap around the edge (perhaps that's opportunity for an extra chemistry lesson?). The top cap is a spinner with 6 segments, but only 2 colors to choose from, so it looks similar to a trefoil radiation symbol. Depending on which color the spinner lands on, you pick a stick of the corresponding color to read to the other players. The yellow cards contain 3 clues to be read, to get other players to guess what element is on the card. These work pretty well. The red cards actually end up being more of a challenge to the reader, as they are more of a "Taboo" style set of cards, giving 3 words that can't be used to describe the element. From a game play perspective, without teams and someone watching to make sure the clue giver doesn't use one of the "no no" words doesn't work super well, and there's no real incentive for the clue giver to want to do a great job describing an element, since the first person to guess the element is the one who wins the stick/point, and the reader gets nothing. Then, there's some extra bonus text on these sticks that's only readable with the special "decoder" red lens, for some unexplainable reason. A single player collecting 5 sticks wins the game. Ultimately, the biggest problem with this game is the drastic lack of questions. With 60 sticks in the game, there are only 30 of each color. And, since each stick has ONE element featured on it, I'm failing to see how the game can help kids learn about 118 elements, when only about half of them are featured as the answer to the questions being asked as part of the game play. With so few questions, this game can only be a couple times before all the questions have been used, and repeating the same questions, especially when each element only ever appears on one stick, quickly loses the "fun" aspect. This would have a lot more replay value as a game if there were a lot more sticks, with multiple sticks of each element, each of which contain different information/clues, so that it's not possible to just memorize most of the questions in short order. As this game sits right now, I could see it being useful as a type of flash cards covering the more common elements, but those aren't necessarily things that most kids would consider a "game."

my son loves exploring, asking questions and learning anything about everything. this is great for his sponge of a brain!

This is great for any kid learning the elements of the periodic table, which is hard to master. It is compact (approx 7" tall and only 3" wide) and perfect for trips. I love that it comes with the spinner in the cap. It is played like a "guess who" type of game where one person pulls a periodic table element and describes it via the card to the other player(s) and they have to guess what the element is. Could be very hard for younger kids but I would say this is more middle school age - could also be fun for the college kid chemistry geared students. I have a family member who loves the periodic table so I will be buy this for her! I've never seen a game incorporating the periodic table in it before and I think it's great!

Good and learning gift.

Just as ordered. Interesting and a bit different.

Very informative and entertaining game...appropriate for for ages from 8 to adults..multiple players can play..very compact and travel friendly packaging with mindful design of sustainable materials...colorful labelling and easy to understand instructions...value for money and highly recommended...great for gifting

Bought this for my granddaughter to take on a camping holiday……excellent for both indoor and outdoor. The whole family & friends had great fun with it.

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