Race to Planet X: Number Bond Game - Math Games for Kindergarten, First Grade - Learn Addition Subtraction with a Super Fun Board Game

This game was a good challenge to start with for my 5 year old - the more we played the faster she got at spotting number bonds. My 7 year old was faster - the board looks so short but it is deceptive! Game pieces can go forward and backward as number bonds are made and then broken! The game can be extended by adding in the teen number cards therefore making number bonds to 20. I really enjoyed this game and loved watching my kiddos getting faster and faster at adding!!

This is a beautifully balanced game, just enough skill (gotta get your basic addition right) + luck + strategy to keep things really interesting. The special cards add excitement: you can smash combos others have made, sending them back down the track, or you can defend against smashes, or you can try to steal others' cards. This adds a ton of richness and suspense to the game, but also can be a little intense in an adversarial sort of way, so if you are playing with a sensitive young one, you may want to hold back a bit. This game stands on its own, i.e. the math learning is a bonus, but I'd want to play it even though I can add to 20 already :). The relatively small format will make it great for travel -- good thing because I expect we'll be playing this a bunch.

My 6 year old son loves this game! He was excited from the moment he saw the great graphics on the box, and wanted to keep playing it over and over again (even when he lost!). I agree with a previous review that the compact box will make it perfect for travel!With the complex strategy involved, I can tell that this game is going to grow with him even after the math itself is less challenging for him. Plus there are easy ways to adjust the rules to make it more challenging as he gets older such as allowing multiplication/division or allowing more than 3 cards for the Power Combos. The Special Cards, especially the Smash Card, makes for fun family competition! A wonderful addition to our board game collection!

I wanted something other than an iPad game to teach my 5-year old math... and one that we could all hopefully play together as a family. This fit the bill - easy to learn, not frustrating for kids to learn, and they had a blast using the special cards and combos. He's been asking us to play this together with him every night for the past few weeks. Highly recommended!

Kids love this game, we've shared it with other homeschool kids too. My 8 yr old was still struggling with all math facts including the plus 1s. Playing this game every day for a week did more than online math facts did in a year, we plan to play it once a week all year. To speed things up we have a few house rules: each Zap card is good for requesting three numbers of your choice from the draw pile rather than other players. If it is a green card it counts for two. Players can only mark squares on the board for power combos they have defended or if they are winning the game because otherwise their power combos are not for sure yet (they might be smashed). If you have a smash or zap you have to use it. The picture shows how we explained the power combos to the kids the first time we played the game.

I did not know what a number bond was until my daughter brought home some cryptic homework from first grade, which I had to correct. We were thrilled to find a game that reinforces these "new math" concepts and makes them fun! We started with just the "easy" cards before playing with the full deck. There's some strategy and a bit of luck to this game which makes it fun for both my husband and I to play with the kids and keeps us guessing! This is a great way to sneak in some math, board game skills, card game skills, and some fun and friendly competition, all in a compact little box which won't take up too much room on your bookshelf!

I was looking for a fun way to practice and reinforce number bonds, this is it! I watched their little minds work through possible bonds with the cards they had and find bonds within the cards in their hands. They had a blast, very happy with my purchase.

We have been playing this non-stop using an abacus to provide visual aid when discussing the number combos we create. This is an excellent tool when teaching basic math but can also can be used for other complicated math problems. It has reinvigorated our love for board games but has also created a love for math. It's as fun as it is educational. Fun for grown ups too!