Magical Mathematicians

When a game is labelled “educational” that definitely doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun at the same time! And this one, published by Orchard Toys, is magic! Magic Maths in fact!

Orchard Toys do a great collection of games for younger players which help reinforce kids’ learning in ways that are engaging, colourful, and definitely don’t feel like homework!

In Magic Maths up to four budding wizards (age 5-7) use their number skills to solve a range of simple sums (addition, subtraction, and multiplication). When they do, they gain gruesome ingredients which they can place on their own cauldron boards.

Spellbinding Sums

Players begin with 6 randomly selected square number tiles – these are effectively the answers to the sums they are about to solve. Each one has a charmingly grim image on the back ranging from smelly cheese and rotten apples to stinky socks and old bones. And which kid do you know doesn’t love bogies?!

Then they take it in turns to try to match their answer tile to the sums they select from a shared pool of rectangular sum tiles. If they have the answer on one of their tils, they take the sum and add their answer tile to their cauldron, flipping it over first to show the yucky image! And If you don’t have the answer on your turn but someone else does, they take the sum instead and add an ingredient to their board! The first player to successfully solve 6 sums and fill all six empty spots on their cauldron board completes their potion and is declared the winning wizard!

What’s extra cool is that if you want to check the answer of any sum, you can rub the back of the tile to check. Using magic (okay, science!), the answer will appear from nowhere!

Final Thoughts

This is a fun game which brings KS1 level maths into the learning-through-play zone. The artwork on the tiles is icky in the way little kids love, and it plays in that golden 15-minute window where attention is kept!

The heat sensitive patches do work, but it can take some rubbing on a cold day or if you have cold hands like me! And the cardboard components are nice and thick so the durability of this game shouldn’t be too much of a worry.

As a parent and a gamer, I love it when my two worlds collide. And our son’s favourite subject at school is maths. So, when he was following the KS1 curriculum during the pandemic, we found this really helped support him and his learning in a pressure-free way. For him it was fun and for us it was guilt free!

Orchard Toys are a great option for kids’ games that reinforce and help to support many skills, including social development. And what can be better than playing a game knowing that it is enriching their minds as well as making them smile? It doesn’t get much better than that! Thanks Magic Maths!

Editors note: This post was originally published on 21st March 2023. Updated on 11th April 2024 to improve the information available.