I consider myself a game school guru. I’ve been teaching through games since JustaBXgirl was teeny and tiny. Somehow Grandpa Beck’s Games slipped my radar. The Melanated Gold Review Squad made sure that corrected my wrong. I now need to get all of their titles on my game shelf. What made me love them so? The Bears and the Bees. If you didn’t know, we are a bit bee obsessed around there so having a bee-themed game was definitely up our alley.
Sometimes when we get games that I’m vocal about being “gameschool” it makes JustaBXgirl a bit weary. It’s easier to simply ask if she wants to play a game. That way she isn’t worried about what she’s supposed to get out of it and instead naturally enjoys it. We even got my 14-year-old nephew to play with us a few times. I love when a game works for the entire family.
Before I begin sharing how fun the game is and the way to use it for game school, I want to take a moment to admire the beauty of this game. Do you see how absolutely gorgeous it is? We absolutely love the images, including the bear paw infiltrating the hive in the box. The cards themselves look like each one has been drawn or painted. And it came with one of Grandma Beck’s recipes. We’re saving that to try later. I’m also planning to have JustaBXgirl rewrite the recipe into our recipe book so it will be a chance to practice some copy work. Us homeschoolers gotta be creative, right?
Back to the game at hand, it is simple to play and doesn’t require a lot of prep. You simply deal the cards based on the number of players. Two to three players get nine cards and for games of over four players, each player gets eight cards. Other than that all you have to do is set out the Queen Bee and let the game begin. The object of the game is to get rid of all of your cards. You get rid of them by matching colors. Seems simple enough. It gets complicated when there’s more than one side to match. It isn’t as easy when you have worker bees and drones doing their jobs. And don’t forget the bears! Oh my!!!!
Seriously, this game is lots of fun and has lots of opportunities for learning. Besides the obvious lesson of color matching, it’s a game of focus, a game of strategy, and a game of laughs. Don’t forget that learning should be fun. It is also a great way to introduce, supplement, or complement a study on bees. Bees are important. The thing is many of us don’t learn just how important they are to our day-to-day life until we’ve swatted a many.
You don’t have to believe me though. You can check our Grandpa Beck’s Games for yourself and get 15% off using the promo code MelanatedGold15.
Don’t forget to head over and check out what my friends at Melanated Gold Review Squad think about this curriculum.
