Review: Sunya Publishing (TOS Review)

We had such a fun time checking out this fun new game by Sunya Publishing, called Sunya:  The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science, Adding & Subtracting.  It’s not yet available for purchase, but it will be soon!

My oldest son was reluctant to try it out, but after playing for a bit he exclaimed, “This is actually fun!”.  What better way to review math facts then through game?  My oldest two, (ages 10 and 7) both had fun playing this.  My 5 year old took part in the fun as well, but in a simpler way. 

The game comes with number cards (0-9), symbol cards (=, –, +) and some other fun cards with jokes and trivia on them.

The game also includes an instruction manual.  I have to admit the instruction manual was a bit confusion.  In an attempt to thoroughly explain and simplify the game, I feel the over complicated it and made it more difficult.  I prefer directions to be SHORT and to the POINT!  This book gives lots of pictures examples, which aren’t necessary (in my opinion).  I tried at first to just skim the directions (I can’t be the only one that does this) and I was left not understanding how to play.  I went back and read word for word the directions and then got a better grasp, it is not really difficult at all, though the wordy directions make it seem as such.

To make it simple:

1.  Build a correct number sentence with your cards using + or -

2.  Shuffle what’s left and pass 4 cards to each player, place the rest in the draw pile

3.  On your turn you draw ONE card to place in your hand, then using the cards in your hand build a new number sentence.  you can place up to 3 cards, but you can not place a duplicate card (no placing 3 on a 3 that’s already there).  If you have no cards to play, you draw until you have one.

4.  Play continues until one player uses all their cards and says “SUNYA”  (think like the game ‘UNO’)

5. If you run out of cards in the draw pile, remove the bottom cards from the number sentences and reshuffle for a new pile.

The instructions also mention a discard pile, honestly I couldn’t figure out how or when that would be needed.  We never used one and the game was fine.

This was a great game to play on our road trip we recently took.  It’s small, easy to pack around, and was an entertaining way to work in some math!  The joke/trivia cards were also fun and killed some time in the car.

For my 5 year old we used the number cards in a Montessori Style, he placed them in numerical order and then lined up objects (in this case animals) under each number card.  It’s a great way to practice numeric order and one to one correspondence counting.

The cards also include dots, so this helps with younger kids in adding as well!

I would like to have seen the numbers go higher, like maybe to 12, or at least 10.  However, it was still a really fun game and the perfect way to practice addition and subtraction up to 9!