Zillio Playground

Initially, I was concerned the Zillio Mini Mountain, while bright and fun visually, might not catch-on with my seven- and ten-year-old. Time after time, I have purchased games, educational or otherwise, that seemed like a great idea at the time, but didn’t play-out well in our homeschool. ...

So, it was with some reservation that I pulled out the Zillio Mini Mountain and gathered my hoodlums around it.

The doubts? They were short short-lived. Very short-lived.

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I've put off reviewing the Zillio for quite a while now, not because I didn't really like it.  In fact, I put the review off because it's rather hard to describe fully how helpful this product has proved to be.  There is so much you can do with the Zillio.  I have used it with my two year old twins, my 9 year old, my 11 year old, and ... It's a way to move beyond pen and paper with your child and really help them to "see" the equation.

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My daughters and I had a lot of fun with Mother May I and Skip Counting. I think as they grow Zillio will begin to be easier especially as they learn additional math skills. They have throughly enjoyed the idea of the Zillio and how math can be a fun game. I think that if we spent more time working with it at least one a week, it would allow them to get ahead of the school curiculum and be ready for the next lesson long before it is presented.

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When a child lays eyes on the bold, colorful Zillio Mini Mountain, their natural impulse is to immediately lay hands on it. Making math hands-on and fun is precisely what Zillio does so well, with a series of 20 math-based games that do a beautiful job of incorporating creativity, imagination, and fun into math-play. The Mini Mountain's structure is comprised of 12 brilliantly colored removable staircases, with individual steps representing numbers and multiples. Numbered foam tokens that fit snugly into spaces on steps are key components of game play. The accompanying booklet organizes games so as to allow you to easily pick the right skill level for any given players, with some games being competitive, some collaborative in nature. A treasure trove well in the top of the mountain allows components to be easily stored. A mountain of fun! 

What I love about Zillio is that the products are math manipulatives (which means your child can "manipulate" something concrete to solve the math problem); manipulatives are key to my son's learning needs so Zillio products dovetail perfectly to his learning style.  Not only that, the games are fun and as my children played the games, their confidence level grew.  And let me tell you, if you are worried about your children losing skills over the summer, these are perfect for the summertime learning - your kids will have so much fun playing the games they won't even realize they are learning too!

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