Orchard Toys Mammoth Maths Game Review

Reviewed by Debbie Talbot

Like so many other parents in the country right now, I am home schooling my children.  I want their learning experience to be fun and for there to be the right balance of free play and games based learning in the mix too.  Orchard Toys has often been my go-to brand for this purpose.  We have so many other Orchard Toys games in our home which have provided hours and hours of fun family memories as well as helping with my twin sons’ learning and development.  I was therefore to be delighted to be offered some Orchard Toys games to review, one of which was Mammoth Maths.  My sons are aged 8 and so fall within the suitable age range of this game which is age 5-8.  The game is suitable for 2-4 players.  

The game arrived quickly in perfect condition due to being well packaged. The box design, like all other Orchard Toys games I have come across, looked both appealing and informative.   My sons and I could not wait to get started and excitedly unpacked the contents of the box which were:

• 1 jigged playing board
• 30 stone ring cards
• 1 bone number line
• 4 cave-person playing pieces
• 4 character stands
• 4 two-piece mammoths
• 1 dice
• 1 feather card
• 1 magic torch viewer
• 1 instruction leaflet

The box informed me that the game has been carefully designed to:

• Develop addition and subtraction skills
• Reinforce number and counting skills
• Encourage observation

First of all we assembled the game board and slotted together the 3D mammoths.  Each player then chose a matching mammoth and cave person and placed their cave person at the start of the board.   The cave person needed to be slotted into its base.  Each of us then took 4 stone ring cards.  Note that if you have an older child, then the harder darker stone cards could be perfect for them.    We then placed the feather, number line, viewer and dice where all players could reach them.  The youngest player rolled the dice first.  Working out who is the youngest player is always amusing for myself being mummy of twins.  The first player then moved the number of spaces round the board as indicated by what the dice landed on.  When landing on a board space, you need to look at the plus or minus side of your stone ring card and answer the question that corresponds to whether the board indicates a plus or minus.  If you are correct, you get to place the card on the mammoth’s trunk but if incorrect you must place the card down in front of you.  You can check if your answer is correct or not by using the magic torch viewer.  The number line is helpful for if needed.  Personally at 45 years old I still tend to count on my fingers.  Now for the really fun part.  If you land on a feather you must pick up the feather and tickle another players mammoth’s trunk with it and remove on card to place back in front of that player.  Once you have collected all 4 stone rings you need to make your way back to the cave, hoping that no one will make your mammoth sneeze and lose one of your precious rings.   The winner is the first person to make it back into the cave with 4 rings on their mammoth’s trunk.  You do not need to roll the exact number to get into the cave.   You can adjust the length of the game by taking more or less stone ring cards at the start. 

We had so much fun playing this game and it is brought out regularly to play in our home now.   I would recommend this game to others as it is both fantastic fun and educational.  We found the mammoth tickling part hilarious and my sons loved using the viewer to check whether they had the correct answer.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £12.95

This game can be purchased from the Orchard Toys website here.