TDmonthly Product Review
 Name: Diving Off the Coral Reef of Integers
Company: WORLD CLASS LEARNING MATERIALS INC.
Age: 8 and up
Price: $21.95
Category: Educational
What Is It?
It’s a board game that deals in math, but very specific math: adding and subtracting integers, positive and negative integers. For those who don’t remember what an integer is, or, more importantly, what a negative integer is, this is the game for you. And, it’s definitely the game for kids first learning about them. It has a colorful undersea-inspired board with a bubble route that leads to a treasure chest. Up to six “divers” (cool colored plastic game pieces) start at the top. In the easiest incarnation of the game, players roll three dice (one red, one white, one blue) and form an equation. If the answer is a positive number, the player moves forward accordingly. A negative number: back. First person to the treasure chest wins.
What We Thought
Okay, this is a game for ages 8 and up and my son’s 7, but he’s pretty darn good at math (and we’ve done negative numbers for a couple years now), so we thought we’d give it a try. First, we talked about the cool underwater stuff (he just got back from Hawaii and has been seeing this stuff for real). We then started the game. He was green, and I was blue. He rolled the dice and made the equation. Negative number. I rolled the dice and got a negative number. This went on for awhile, and we got a little frustrated, but finally, he got a positive number, and we were on our way. It took a little skull work, and a long time (too many negative numbers), but we finally came to a final equation showdown. I got the negative solution, and my son got the positive and won.
Why They’ll Want ItIt’s an excellent primer for adding and subtracting negative and positive numbers; a fun way to learn. Unfortunately, for us, there was more going backwards than forwards. There’s a level 2 and level 3 (for more sophisticated players). These are decks of equations (with the answers on the backs). Rather than two term equations, there were three term equations, and the upper level added multiplication and division. This should be useful for a number of learning years to come. All in all it’s a fun game and keeps the mind sharp, but there could be a few more twists and turns on the board. It’s definitely unique for what it does. -- TDmonthly Staff, 4/24/06
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