Hedbanz Electronic

Hedbanz Electronic

Hedbanz and Hedbanz Act Up are popular family games, so why not keep the sales fun going by adding an electronic unit and calling it Hedbanz Electronic. The red, battery-operated unit will select the game, track the time and keep the score. Your job will still be to guess what is in your headband.

Headbanz Electronic comes with only two headbands (see image above). Other Hedbanz games come with more headbands, but this game is meant as a party game with 2 teams, or an individual game where only one person at a time plays. The headbands have a slit on the front and you will insert a game card with a picture on it in the slit. While you are wearing the headband others will be able to see what is on the card but you will not. 

There are 77 game cards included and all cards are one-sided. Each card will feature an image of a common thing, animal or job and the word that names the thing/animal/job (see image above). For instance a picture of a chicken and the word "chicken". A few others are airplane, whale, plumber, kangaroo, soldier and toaster.

There are also three question cards. In the image above you see six question cards, but my games has three and each card has two questions, instead of one. Questions are:

• How do I move around?  What is a tool that I use?
• Where am I usually found?  What sound do I make?
• What am I made of?  What am I used for?

The red and white plastic game unit takes 3 AAA batteries (not included). The unit opens and you can store your cards and headbands inside. There is one big white button on the top that will glow either red or blue to indicate who should be playing. There are also three white buttons on the top, each one indicating a mode of play: 1) Ask it, 2) describe it and 3) do it. The unit will surprise you by picking the mode you should be playing by throughout the game. Whichever one of these is lit up is how the team will be playing at that time. There is only one guesser per team, per round. The three forms of guessing are played this way:

• Ask it - The team tells the guesser the category (job, animal or thing) and then the guesser asks his team yes or no questions until he correctly guesses the card in his headband, or until time runs out. In this round you may also ask any of the questions on the question cards to individual players and these questions DO NOT require just yes or no answers.
  Play until the guesser guesses or time runs out.
• Describe it - The guesser's teammates can say anything they want EXCEPT the word on the card. Play until the guesser guesses or time runs out.
• Do it - The guesser's teammates must use charades, or pantomime, the word until the guesser guesses or time runs out. No words or sounds allowed.

During the course of a round each team will play each mode once, therefore it will change six times during a round. The unit will tell you when to start and stop. Be alert and ready to play with your team at any time.

The instructions include two ways to play: Party (two teams) and Classic (individual - two or more players).

Party Version

Object:
Earn the most points by guessing the cards on your head.

Set up:
Take the headbands and the cards out of the unit and close it. Turn the switch inside to team play. Place the three question cards face-up in the middle of the players. Shuffle the rest of the cards and place them in a face-down stack nearby. Divide evenly into two teams. Give the red headband to one person on the red team, and give the blue headband to one person on the blue team. These two people will be the guessers for the first round. Each guesser draws three cards and does not look at them. They each place one card, without looking at it, in the headband, image side forward, so that the others can see the image on the card but they can't.

Play:
There are three rounds to a game, and you will play one game for each player on a team so each player can be a guesser. A player will push the white button on the unit. It will glow either red or blue, telling you whose turn it is, and it will light up one of the modes of play (ask it, describe it, or do it). The colors will switch back and forth between teams during the round, so be alert and ready to play at any time.

Let's say the first team up is the red team. They will quickly go into action, playing per the mode that lit up. As the players on the red team give clues, the guesser for the red team guesses until they either guess correctly and press the white button so the machine can record the win, or the time runs out and the color on the unit changes to blue, at which point the other team goes into action. If the red player did guess correctly, he quickly places another of the three cards into his headband, ready for the next round. The blue team is not up. This game will end after each team has had three rounds, one for each mode of play.

If you pressed the button during play, meaning you made a correct guess, the unit has kept your score. The instructions also say extra points can be gained depending on how fast the player guessed correctly, but does not tell how those points are scored. At the end of a game the unit will voice each team's total score. As you play other games, the unit will continue to keep and add your scores, coming up with a final score at the end. The team with the highest score at the end wins.   

Classic Version

Object:
Be the player with the most correctly guessed cards after three rounds of play.

Set up:
Give one player a headband. Remove the question cards, they will not be used, and shuffle the rest of the cards. Place them in a face-down stack near the players. Turn the switch in the unit to classic play. The guesser chooses a card and places it in their headband, without looking at it, so other players can see it.

Play:
Press the white button on the unit. This acts as a 60 second timer. Ask the other players yes and no questions. If you think you know the answer, ask "Am I a...?" If you were correct, grab another card, put it in your headband, and keep going until the timer runs out. Keep all the cards you guessed correctly. If you guessed incorrectly, your turn is over. Press the timer to stop it and discard the card. The next person plays. After each person has had three turns, the game is over. The player who collected the most cards wins the game. 

In the box: Electronic game unit, 80 cards, 2 headbands

If you are interested in purchasing this game or just want more information, click on the image below.

Nuts About Sorting

Nuts About Sorting by Lakeshore Learning

Nuts and bolts sets can be used to practice several hand skills at the same time, however it can be tedious work. Often made of wood, twisting the nuts on can take effort until you do it a few times and the threads become smoother. Then once all the bolts are turned on, you have to take them off. Kids can tire of it before you may want them to stop.

Nuts About Sorting is different. Made of brightly colored plastic, the nuts smoothly twist on and off. Hold it sideways, like in the image above, and screw/unscrew the nuts on and off. Or you can stand the bolt upright on the table top, start to twist a nut onto the bolt, let go and watch it quickly spin to the bottom. To remove the bolts just as quickly, pick up a bolt already loaded with nuts, hold it by the bottom and tip it upside down, then watch as the nuts quickly spin and drop off the bottom. Less hand skills involved in the last two, but fun for sorting, grasping, reaching, releasing, etc.

The Nuts About Sorting set includes eight colors, with one bolt and six nuts per color. The colors are very easy to tell apart. Sometimes sets with multiple colors have similar colors that may be hard to tell apart.

Nuts About Sorting by Lakeshore Learning also comes in a counting set with numbers on the nuts and a patterning set. There is a fun video on the site showing them being used.

Try this:

• Make this a patterning set by alternating colors. AB-AB-AB or ABC-ABC. The different between this set and the patterning set is that the bolts in the patterning set hold 9 nuts instead of 6.
• Stand two bolts in front of the individual. Push one at a time to the player and ask them to sort it onto the bolt of the same color.
• Mix all the bolts randomly on the table. Give the player one bolt and ask them to find and add all the nuts of that color to the bolt. Stack another bolt with nuts, keep going until you have sorted them all.
• Stack nuts on the bolt, random colors. Take a picture. Present the individual with the picture and ask them to build one just like it.
  
• Stand all six bolts in front of the player. Place the nuts in a bag. Pull them out one at a time, name the color, and add it to the same color bolt.
• Work on visual discrimination, eye-hand coordination, reach/grasp/release, manual dexterity, spatial relations, building a 2D model from a 3D model, visual closure, executive functioning skills, process skills, play and leisure exploration and participation.
  

If you are interested in purchasing this item or just want more information, lick on the Lakeshore Learning link above.