Brain Freeze

 

Have you ever experienced sphenopalatine ganglioneualgia? Sounds like you should get to the emergency room, quick! However, it's just the scientific name for brain freeze. Brain freeze is that brief, but intense pain in the front of your head that occurs right after you take a bite or drink of something extremely cold. Is it a common problem for you but you still want to enjoy ice cream, popsicles, snow cones and the like? Or are you a fan of these treats but want to avoid the calories? Then Brain Freeze, with its many frozen treats, may be just the game for you.

 

Brain Freeze is a game of logic and deductive reasoning. Two players play to see who can be the first to discover their opponent's Sweet Treat Secret Square. Players do this by asking questions and then secretly recording answers on their boards. It reminds me of the game Battleship, except that a player must determine the four attributes of the secret square, not just two.

Contents of the box.

Each player will have a game board and a secrecy shield (vertical piece), 2 clips to assemble the game board, a dry erase marker, and a cloth eraser. The grid on the board is labeled 1-10 horizontally and A-J vertically. Each of the 100 squares on the board has a picture of a frozen treat. There are five different treats and five different flavors. Each are pictured on the game board (four times each for each treat and flavor). Both boards are the same.

Object:

Be the first to identify your opponent's Sweet Treat Secret Square.

Set up:

Give each player a 2-piece game board, 2 clips (to attach the two pieces), a dry erase marker, and an eraser. Players assemble their boards so their opponent cannot see what they write. Each player secretly chooses one square on their board as their Sweet Treat Secret Square. Each player will mark the coordinates at the top of the secrecy shield and circle the flavor and the treat.

Play:

Players take turns. On each turn you will guess a row, a column, a treat, and a flavor. For instance a player may guess "B-9, a cherry popsicle". The other player will respond either yes or no. Respond yes if there is at least one correct attribute, and answer no if there are no correct attributes. If the player guesses all four attributes correctly, but does not say he is solving the puzzle, just answer yes. Players record the answers they get on their game board. If an answer is no, then cross off those squares on your board. If the answer is yes, then circle that exact square on your board. By reducing the possible squares you will get an idea of what is the correct secret square. 

On each turn a player may either take a guess or solve the puzzle. If you are ready to solve, you will say so at the beginning of your turn. Guess correctly and you win the game. Guess incorrectly and you lose the game. 

Try this:

• Skip the game but use the board. A player will call out a random flavor and a random treat. Both players quickly search their board to see who can find all four of them first. 
• Use a symbol or letters of your choice, that the individual is working on, to mark off the squares as you find them.
• Clean the board as soon as you are done playing to eliminate marks that may be left behind. If you leave the marker on too long it will not clean off entirely and will leave a shadow.
• Skip the game and practice using the grid. Call out a number and letter and ask the player what is in that square. Reverse it and call out a letter, then a number. Call out a specific treat and ask the player to tell you the coordinates.
  

In the box:

2 2-piece games boards, 2 clips, 2 dry erase markers, 2 cloth erasers

 

Color Smash

 

Color Smash and the Stroop Effect

There has been a lot of research done on the Stroop effect, and it makes for pretty interesting reading. As you work your way through the scholarly articles you will encounter things such as response inhibition, behavioral impulsivity, cognitive flexibility, inhibiting cognitive interference, executive functioning, and cognitive processing speed. Sounds pretty heavy for a game, right? Color Smash is based on the Stroop Color and Word Test used to establish the Stroop effect. But don't worry, Color Smash is just for fun, and nothing that is revealed during the game will be used against you (I hope;).

Color Smash consists of 72 round cards in a paint-can tin. As you can see from the image above, cards will have color splashes on them. This is how the cards break down:

• Cards with only one color, in one or two different shades
• Cards with only one color, in one or two different shades, and a color word that is the same as the color splash on the card. Example: a red splash with the word RED printed on the card in red.
  
• Cards with only one color, in one or two different shades, and a color word  that is different from the color splash printed on the card. Example: a red slash with the word BLUE printed on the card in red.
  
• Multi-color cards. These are steal cards and there are only two of these.

Here are examples:

Object:

There are two ways to play:

• Be the person with the most cards at the end of the game.
• Play until one person has all the cards.
  

Set up:

Shuffle the cards and deal them evenly, face-down, to all players.

Play:

Players take turns. Turn your top card over, without looking at it, and place it in the middle of the table, forming a pile. At this point everyone can see it. Next:

• If there is a color splash and no printed word, do nothing. The next person plays.
• If there is a color splash and that color is also printed as a word (blue splash with the word BLUE printed), the first person to hit the pile takes all the cards in the pile. Next player starts a new pile.
• If there is a color splash and a different color is printed as a word (blue splash with word YELLOW printed), do nothing.
• If a multi-color card is played, be the first to slap the pile. Steal five cards from any one of your opponents (the one who looks like they are on track to win would probably be the best choice).

Any time you slap the pile and you are wrong, take five of the cards you have collected and place them at the bottom of the pile in the middle of the table. Play until you have played through all 72 cards OR, if you are playing until someone wins all the cards, as each player runs out of cards he drops out of the game until there is only one person left. Congratulate the winner.

Winner:

• Play through the pile and the person with the most cards wins the game.
• OR
  
• Keep playing until only one person has all the cards and wins the game.
  

Try this:

• Let everybody look over the cards so they understand the game before playing.
• Run through a practice game so everyone can get used to the game before competing.
• Work on hand skills by practicing shuffling and dealing the cards.
• Deal the cards by holding the deck in your non-dominant hand and pushing them off the top, one at a time, with your thumb. Pick the card up with the dominant hand to pass it to the individual.
• Work on manual dexterity, coordinated use of both hands, holding/shuffling/dealing cards, process skills, socialization skills, play and leisure exploration and participation, response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, inhibiting cognitive interference, executive functioning skills, and cognitive processing speed (you knew I was going to have to say that.)   

In the tin: 72 cards