I got a copy of Flashcar from Banner Industries and thought my group at the library would be perfect to try it with.The group of children who visit the library after school is typically the ‘tweens, ages 8-12, and majority male. In my mind I thought this game would be a perfect way to slide in some education, entertainment and reinforce the math skills that they all need to learn.
We arranged a board game day and set up a variety of familiar games. Flashcar was just one of the games available to play and I gathered six volunteers to play. The children attending all are around the same age and attend different schools but this group of children is familiar with each other and have played together before.
My observations:
After going through the rules and a few rounds of play, the group seemed distracted. A few players wandered off declaring that the game was moving too slow and that it wasn’t fun. There was a lack of interest in playing an advanced version which would have included multiplication and division and I thought this could be the reason for the lack of desire to continue. However when the children were offered another chnace to play they all declined.
The boys liked the idea of race car pieces and liked the game more than the girls. Both males and females suggested that there should be additional math problems instead of “just flash cards with only adding/subtracting/ multiplication and division”. When I did a quick drill of some of the cards they were able to quickly respond and correctly chorused the answers.
Asked individually (see the video below) each child was very firm with their opinion. The Bee declared that she didn’t like the idea of flash cards at all and this was the main reason she did not like the game. Other children enjoyed the game but felt that there was something missing although they were not sure what the something was.
Personally I thought the pace of game was a bit slow and the problems too easy for this group. In the future I will use this game with a younger aged group as reinforcement of math skills during some of the tutoring sessions that occur after school. I liked the idea of using Flashcards as a game but would like to see some more challenging problems.
The video:
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