Sunya Math Game (A REVIEW)

Reviewing games is so much fun. I love it when I can say "we just have to play this game today before we get started with school," and of course the kids do too. We had the opportunity to review a brand new game called Sunya - The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding and Subtracting from Sunya Publishing. I was excited for a great opportunity to practice adding and subtracting with this game. This game will soon be available to purchase.

This game came with an instruction book, a stack of number cards, and a stack of riddle cards. I have to admit that instruction book is pretty intimidating at first glance, and the instructions do seem a bit confusing at first. But, once I figured out that the basic premise of the game is just making an addition or subtraction number sentence, and building on that throughout the game is all it is, it's really just a simple game. The instruction book is just so long because it explains the specific rules in great detail. It also has a few variations of playing, and some other fun math activity ideas both with the cards and without.

Playing the basic game of Sunya~

We played the first basic version of the game. My boys (7 and 5) had fun playing this, and even wanted to play more.  Playing the basic Sunya game actually proved to be quite simple. Starting with a basic addition (or subtraction) number sentence a player looks at the cards in his/her hand to see if they can change the number sentence by putting a card on top of the previous one. There are basic rules like no repeating numbers, etc. Those rules are gone over in great detail in the book. We sat in a circle as suggested in the instructions. I had to look at the number sentence upside down, but they do also suggest sitting in a semi-circle so that all can see the numbers right side up. In this game it also doesn't matter if you see each others cards. In fact it is suggested, and I found this to be a great feature so that I could help my 5 year-old participate. A fun feature for winning the game is a player saying "Sunya" when they play their last cards. That is where the riddle cards come in--the winning player gets to draw a riddle card and reads it to everyone as if they were the teacher. That's basically the game in a nutshell. Make number sentences, and have fun. It was really a lot of fun, and I don't think it seemed like "doing math" while we were playing. It felt like we were playing a game, but yet the boys were "doing math" without realizing it.

Overall, I think this game is fun and educational. I like it for a warm-up at the beginning of the day, or for maybe a math break. There is also a multiplication and division game some of the crew members received. I am interested in adding that to our box of math games as well.

Go and see what the other crew members had to say about this game, and the multiply/divide game. Click on the banner below.