Throughout the year I do product reviews for Academic’s Choice. In this latest round of new products I chose to review Key to the Capitals. Geography isn’t my favorite subject to teach; there’s only so much map coloring my kids would tolerate in a year. This seemed like a great way to become more familiar with the states and have fun at the same time.
I liked the simplicity of the board design and rules. It’s designed to help you memorize the 50 state capitals and where they’re located on the map. No fuss, no muss. There is only one page of instructions and away you go! We’re given the standard dice to tell you how many spaces you can move. To shake things up we are also given special effects dice like Extra Gas, Bad Weather, Speed Freak, Redirect, Promotion and Homesick too.
The object of the game is to collect as many capital cards as you can as you fly around the country in your plane. You’ll need to have a little strategy as you make your way across the country so that you make each roll of the dice count. Should you stick to your home state’s area or venture far afield in the hopes of gaining the most capital cards.
I played this game with my 15-year old and my 11-year old. My 11-year old has a visual processing weakness, so he dropped out before the game ended. I questioned him about it later and he said that he enjoyed the game, but after 30 minutes or so his visual muscles were tired and he got frustrated since he had to spend so much time searching for each state. He did say that he wants to play again, so we’ll limit the game to 30 minutes while he gets more familiar with the map.
I think that this is an excellent way for him (and the rest of us) to create a better visual map of the United States. For our family, learning where each state is located is the first goal. Our next goal will be to memorize the capitals. Each game that we play incorporates a little history about the state, when it was added to the country and other fun facts. We had a lot of fun with it and think others may as well.
This game is suitable for children 7 and up, but if you don’t mind helping your child with the reading portion younger children can enjoy it as well. You can pick up your copy at Amazon, but to learn more there is a charming video on their website .
And now for the legalese:
