Wits & Wagers Family Edition by North Star Games

I have a love-hate relationship with board games. Seriously. I enjoy playing board games, and I love buying them for my kids. However, I have to admit that sitting down to play some of those board games can occasionally be like torture. Some games just drag on and on, with little ones grabbing at pieces or bumping the game board while older kids wander off between turns, and bickering spoils the fun. Sigh. Reality rarely matches up with the vision I have when buying a board game or agreeing to play one as a family. But they can be fun, and educational, so we continue to fill our closet full of them.

When I found out we'd be reviewing Wits & Wagers Family edition, I was curious. I wondered if we'd find a new family favorite, or another dreaded torture device. But when I told my husband we were reviewing Wits & Wagers Family edition, he wasn't just curious. He was excited! It seems he'd been hearing Wits & Wagers commercials on the Dave Ramsey show, and he was considering buying it for our family. Well, that piqued my curiosity even more. A game that excited my husband's interest, and was recommended by Dave Ramsey? What could this amazing game be like?

Wits & Wagers Family arrived right before Thanksgiving. We immediately tested it out with Steve, and we all enjoyed it! I won the first game that we played, so that automatically gave Wits & Wagers Family extra points in my book. *wink* We even took it with us for Thanksgiving and played it at my sister's house. It didn't drag on forever, there wasn't a game board full of pieces to be messed up by toddlers, and the game wasn't ruined by bickering.

Since there are more than five of us in the family, and some of the kids are too young to really play it, we paired up little ones with older kids to work as a team. This worked well for us. The 6 year old wrote down his Dad's answers, and the 4 year old placed the meeples where I told her to. (I learned the hard way not to let her place them wherever she wanted.)

What are meeples? They're these ultra-cute little playing pieces that your youngest kids will want to confiscate and play with on the bathroom counter. Guard your meeples carefully or you'll find them in bed with the 2 year old, or living in the doll house.

So, how does Wits & Wagers Family edition work?
The game has 300 NEW family-friendly trivia questions. Each question has a number as an answer. One player reads the question. Then each player writes down their best guess on their write-on/wipe-off answer board. The goal is to get closest to the correct answer without going over the answer.

The players place their answer cards face down, then one player turns them over and arranges them from lowest to highest (have your youngest player do this for extra math practice). Once the answers are lined up in order, each player places their two meeples on the answers they think are correct. You can place both meeples on one card, or each of them on separate cards.

After the meeples are placed, the answer is read from the back of the card, as well as a related trivia fact. The winner of that round is the one whose answer is closest to (but not over) the answer. They get points for being correct. Then, points are awarded to those who wagered that person had the correct answer, and placed meeples on that answer card. Everyone has a chance to win points in each round.

Once a player reaches 15 points, they have won. We chose to continue playing until all but two players had reached 15 points when we didn't have time for more than one game. If we wanted to play more than one game, we would stop after the first player won.

ElCloud Opinion
This game is great for families because it doesn't drag on too long. It allows the family to play multiple games and have more than one winner each night. Although we paired our 6 year old with Dad, our 9 year old was able to play on his own. The box says ages 8+, and that is an accurate assessment. The game can be played with 3-10 players. (It comes with 5 answer boards, so teams of 2 would be required if more than 5 players are involved.)

The instructions that came with the game were easy to understand, with colorful illustrations to accompany the written instructions. The game pieces were all of quality construction: colorful, and sturdy enough for family use. The game is easily-scored with a write-on/wipe-off score board. For each point a player wins, an x is placed in the provided chart. The first to fill up their row wins. It's simple enough for a child to be scorekeeper. The entire game is simple enough that parental involvement isn't required after the first game or two. Despite that, it still interests the whole family.

Wits & Wagers Family gets the ElCloud family "thumbs-up"! We definitely recommend it. If you hurry, you can still buy it for Christmas presents!

Wits & Wagers Family retails for $19.99, and can be purchased at the North Star Games website, Target, and other retailers (both online and local.) You can also follow North Star Games on facebook.

This item was provided free for our review as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. We received no other compensation, and this review is our honest opinion. Visit the TOS Homeschool Crew blog to read more reviews on this product by other Homeschool Crew members.

Trusting In Him,
April

Advent Calendar and Poinsettia Lights

When I was in college, my room mate made a gift for me.  She had seen poinsettia lights for sale in the gift store where she worked and decided she could make them for less money.  So she did, and she gave them to me.  I loved them!

Our first Christmas after we were married, these lights wrapped all around our little Charlie Brown yard sale artificial Christmas tree.  We also had some other lights on the tree, but the red poinsettia lights really dressed up the tree.

Eventually, we got a larger tree, and we couldn't really stretch this one strand to wrap around the whole tree anymore.  Instead, we began to use them in other parts of our living room.  Our entire family enjoys them, and finding new places to display them.

Behind the poinsettia lights, in the hall, you can see another ElCloud family tradition.  My sister bought us this perpetual advent calendar several years ago.  We love it!  It's made of felt, and the tree has gold knobby buttons sewn on it.  They look like gold ornaments, but they also provide the hooks to hang the little ornaments on each day of the month between Dec. 1 and Christmas.

Each night, we alternate which child hangs up the ornament, starting with the youngest and working our way up to the oldest.  Our oldest children no longer care about getting their turn, but their younger siblings want them to take a turn, so they still do.  We count down our way to Christmas with Advent devotions, as well as this Advent calendar.

When I was a young child, our family was stationed in Germany.  It was there that we first were introduced to Advent calendars.  We had the type with chocolate in them one year, and other years we had the ones with just pictures to open.  It was a special memory, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to do the same with my children.

Do you have any special traditions for the Advent season?

Visit Garden of Learning to read more Holiday Bliss posts.

April E.

Christmas Snowflakes

When I was in high school, the Army moved my family to Panama.  It was a big change for our family, especially as the winter months rolled around.  Suddenly the weather went from hot, humid, and rainy ... to hot and sunny.   We were spending weekends at the beach in months we usually were watching movies under blankets in the living room.

That year, my Aunt sent us a care package for Christmas.  I  think she'd drawn my Mom's name in the family gift exchange.  The best part of her gift, though, was the 6 crocheted snowflakes she sent us.  She sent us snow, when we couldn't have snow.  We hung those 6 snowflakes across the top of our china cabinet, and enjoyed their beauty all winter.

When I got married, the very first ornaments I bought were two sets of 12 crocheted snowflakes from a Current catalog.  That first Christmas, they were almost the only ornaments on our tree.  I loved it.

Since then,  our children's ornaments have displaced my snowflakes.  Instead, I hang them from the ceiling, between our dining room and living room.

Every year when I look at them, I think back to the blessing those first crocheted snowflakes were (to me) when we received them in Panama.  Maybe they didn't mean as much to the rest of the family, but they were very special to me.

What ornaments are special to you?

Visit Garden of Learning to read more Holiday Bliss posts.

April E.