Product Review: BrainQuest

"It's O.K. to Be Smart!"

Wow. I opened the package Brain Quest sent me. Inside the large, board game sized box was a standard DVD case and pack of cards.

Immediately my seven year old daughter wanted to know what it was.

"Mom, it says ages six to eight and grades one to three. Is this for me?"

Why yes, it is. She immediately set out to try it.

It's a pretty simple concept, the DVD contains over 500 questions that are randomly chosen. The question and possible answers are read and the child selects the answer using the arrows on the remote. The correct answer is then given. Occasionally, the question on the screen doesn't contain all the information the narrator reads. The only downside to this we've found is there isn't a way to re-read the question.

My daughter took to it immediately. She asks almost daily to play Brain Quest in my room. It also came in handy during a recent road trip. Everyone got into the spirit of it. It was so nice not to listen to the same animated voices we hear most every road trip.

The pack of cards are held together with a grommet and contain 150 questions (and their answers) in five categories: English, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Grab Bag. This was stashed in her entertainment box for the car. She loves reading them out loud, to see if I know the answers. Most of the time I do.

BrainQuest also has a wide variety of cards, from Early Childhood vocabulary for ages 2 to 3 with 400 questions to 7th Grade General Curriculum containing 1,500 questions.

This is a clever product that turns TV time into interactive learning time. I found the questions to be age appropriate for my seven year old. Sure some of them were 'super easy,' but others left her completely stumped, which is good as well.