Playing games to go along with our history rotation has been so much fun. A game makes a unit fun and memorable, and if it’s the only thing they remember?? That’s just fine with me.
Childhood is made up of the intentional passage of time. We don’t remember much from our childhoods but general feelings and I am counting on playing lots of games with my kids to help the general feeling of their childhoods be one of learning and fun.
Stone Age is a worker placement/dice/strategy board game for 2-4 players, ages 8-10+, and it takes about an hour.
Players use their “family members” (meeples) to earn resources, cards, more family members, and ultimately, points and the game is played in 3 phases.
- Phase 1: Place tribe members in strategic places around the board to earn resources.
- Location Options: Village, Family Hut, Fields, Hunting Grounds, Resources, Buildings, Civilization Cards
- Location Options: Village, Family Hut, Fields, Hunting Grounds, Resources, Buildings, Civilization Cards
- Phase 2: Perform the action for each tribe member’s location.
- Hunting Grounds and Resource locations require dice to determine how many resources are earned. Roll one die for each figure placed on the location and calculate resource production from the sum of the die.
- Phase 3: Feed the tribe. Players have to have collected enough food during the last phase to feed every member of their tribe or lose points! It’s the Stone Age, remember?!? Food is Priority #1!
The game ends when the deck of civilization cards runs out or one stack of buildings is empty. The player with the most points wins!
Collecting enough food for your tribe is what makes this game challenging, and it’s the thing about this game that makes it so impactful in a study of primitive people. Food gathering is always the number one priority, which interferes with accumulating other point-earning resources. It really drives home the survival challenges early people faced and has helped my kids understand better what life must have been like before agriculture development and modern food production techniques.
It’s a great GAMESCHOOL game for a study of anthropology, history, agriculture, biology, and more! Plus it’s just plain fun to play and will give kids something experiential to tie to their learning.
Thanks to Z-Man Games for sharing it with us!
