Muggins & Knock-Out Wooden Math Games Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been using Muggins in my 4th grade Classroom all year AND I've also been using it at home with my 3rd grade and Kindergarten boys. Everyone LOVES it. While they know it is a math game, no one cares. Over the course of a game, students are doing hundreds of 'Mental Math' flash cards in their heads. In a nutshell, the way you play is that the board displays the numbers from 1-36 and each player takes turns rolling 3 regular dice. The player takes the three numbers that come up and tries to find an open space on the board to play their marble. Players may +/-/x/ or divide the numbers to come up with a play. For example, if I roll a 3, 4, and 2.... I could add them up to get 9, or I could do something like 3 x 4 = 12 and 12 / 2 = 6 to get 6.
The real fun begins when the board starts to fill up. For example, once the numbers 6 and 9 are taken, you can't play your marble on them and have to think of a different way to combine the numbers. Also - a big part of the game comes in the scoring. Each player gets a point for every marble they have on the board at the end of the game. However, each player earns bonus points for how many marbles they have in a run (or row).
Ignore the high price (because you get an equally fun game, Knockout, on the back side of the board) and the lame name (but remember that this game was created well before Harry Potter / Muggles terminology was) and buy this game for your family or class.
The game also comes with 3 12-Sided Dice and I use those when we play with my Kindergartener. When we play with him, we modify the rules so you can only add and subtract. He often will figure out ways to beat me and his older brother.
I have also been told that an independent study was run using this game in two 5th grade classrooms that had equal math abilities at the beginning of the year. One used the game in class throughout the year and one did not. At the end of the year, the 5th grade class that used Muggins throughout the year had improved their math scores tremendously compared to the class that did not.

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