Making Maths fun with Learning Resources

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We’re slowly reaching the end of a very long 3 months. 3 months at home with our children, attempting to home school whilst juggling work and home life and at times, clinging on to our sanity for dear life. Whilst many children are returning back to their educational settings, sadly for some children, their year groups aren’t going back till September, meaning that many have been out of school for far longer than anyone first imagined.

By this point in lockdown, the novelty of learning with your parents has well and truly worn off (if indeed it was ever there to begin with) and in Erin’s case, the only way I can encourage her to do any form of maths or English at the moment is to make it fun, opting for educational games, apps and activities instead of the more traditional work sent home from school.

We are big fans of Learning Resources in this house, having reviewed a number of products from their educational range in the past. We were recently sent a sample of their new game Sum Swamp – an educational yet super fun addition and subtraction game for infant school children aged 5-7 years.

Table of Contents

What is Sum Swamp?

The Learning Resources addition and subtraction game Sum Swamp is set in a fun brightly coloured swamp scene. With bright colours and friendly engaging illustrations, it catches the attention of children immediately, and Erin was really excited to play – so much so that the fact it contained actual mathematics skills seemed to escape her attention!

The aim of the game is to navigate your character all the way through the swamp and out the other side. The first player to reach the finish space is the winner.

There are four bright chunky game pieces to chose from – a crocodile, dragonfly, frog and snail all of which are different colours so that players can quickly and easily recognise their own piece.

Sum Swap game play involves players rolling all 3 dice – two of which are number dies and the third an operation die, resulting in either a plus or minus symbol.

Players must complete the sum that the dice create – e.g. 4 – 3 or 4 + 3 and once they have calculated the answer, move forward the number of spaces through the swamp.

If you land on a shortcut space can move proceed forward more quickly and skip some of the spaces.

Some spaces on the board are also marked as Odd or Even. On these spaces, players must get an odd or even number in order to move forward. If you don’t get the right type of number then you must stay put.

Finally there are also number spaces, and here players must roll the white operation die only. If the player rolls the minus, they must move backwards that number of spaces, and if they roll a plus move forwards.

The end of the board features an “Endless loop”, whereby players must roll and land on the exit square in order to make their way out. If they don’t roll the exact number they need to land on the exit square, they must go around the loop again.

The Educational Benefits of Sum Swamp

Erin really enjoyed playing Sum Swamp, and as a parent, by far the biggest benefit was that although it was educational, playing didn’t feel like any kind of chore – for any of us! There was no need for encouragement, bribery(!) or asking twenty times, she actually WANTED to play, and wanted to play it often!

Sum Swamp is great for Erin’s mathematical and numerical skills, with every move requiring some form of addition and subtraction, as well as recognition of odds and evens.

Gameplay takes around 10-20 minutes so is quick enough that we were able to fit into a ‘juggled working day at home and play at appropriate gaps in your own work schedule. The instructions are very easy to understand meaning you can get started playing relatively quickly.

Erin took on the task of adding or subtracting the sums as she went along even when it wasn’t her turn, which meant there was quite a lot of maths involved in a short game. We would quite often play more than once in a row.

I personally found the endless loop a little bit frustrating but overall Erin has really enjoyed this game and we have played it a LOT during lockdown.

The learning is really subtle, where as if I tried to ask her to do a sheet of sums she would have definitely resisted. Sum Swamp is a great way to help children with simple arithmetic, increasing their confidence with maths in a fun and interactive way.

Sum Swamp was shortlisted for a Made for Mums Toy of the Year Award in 2018 and its easy to see why. You can learn more about the game on the Learning Resources website here.