License to Play #1 - Shell Shocker
Welcome to "License to Play - from House Full of Books". This is an occasional newsletter where we go beyond books. Children love to play. Play is fun. Play is work for children. Play is what they grow with. Play is what they enjoy. Children have the License to Play!
In this newsletter, we will cover topics that encourage children to play. Games, interesting toys, activities, shows etc. You get the drift, I am sure. As things stand now, this newsletter will be nowhere as frequent as the regular HFOB newsletter. It will turn up once in a while in your inboxes. When it does, it will be on a Sunday, when the regular newsletter does not come. Hopefully, you will find it as interesting as the regular HFOB newsletter!
“Shell Shocker”, a card game on turtle and tortoise diversity of India. Developed by Turtle Survival Alliance India, a non-profit organisation working for state-of-the-art conservation, research, community outreach and conservation education on Turtles and Tortoises of India.
Peeyush Sekhsaria, who is the author of “Our Tigers Return” (one of our favourite books) and a subscriber of House Full of Books, is one of the people who came up with this game.
The game has a deck of 36 cards packed with some interesting facts aimed towards generating awareness about different species of native tortoises, freshwater and marine turtles, and exotics found across India. Anyone can discover how species compare to each other and can play it out with five interesting parameters. Shell length, weight, clutch size, conservation status and threat score. Each card has a brief description of the turtle/tortoise, its habitat, diet and a map showing its distribution.
There are five informative cards in addition to the above cards which need to be read first. The ‘about’ card talks about the organisation and the need to save turtles. The ‘how to play’ talks about playing instructions and explains how to interpret the conservation status. The third one talks about the habitat and diet symbols used in the playing cards. The fourth one lists the project contributors and photo credits. The fifth one talks about other learning resources which provide a similar learning experience. The game is recommended for children aged 10+, but our (nearly) 8-year-old took to it easily enough with a little bit of handholding. It can be played by 2-4 players.
What we liked :
The cards are quite informative. They have just the right amount of things one would need to know for awareness.
The instructions to play were pretty easy to follow.
Loved the presence of the regional names in addition to the scientific name. Gives it that authentic touch. In fact, was surprised to see quite a few Kannada ones there. Helped us as we could read those. Some of the Hindi names were so lyrical and descriptive.
We learnt about so many species and started getting the names and details right as we played the game a couple of times. The almost 8-year-old came up with his own nicknames for some of them. As weird it may sound, he likes to call the Loggerhead Sea Turtle “Bonda”, the Northern River Terrapin as “Tiger” as it looks like one that is roaring in the photo. The sight of the Malayan Softshell Turtle which looks slimy would make him giggle every time.
The game could be played well with either 2/3 players.
This is a well thought of approach to know about these beautiful creatures and their conservation status.
Appreciate the presence of a card that talks about other related learning resources.
This game works as a wonderful supplement to some wonderful children’s books on turtles such as “Waiting For Turtles” by Pankaj Sekhsaria and “Riddle of the Ridley” by Shekar Dattatri.
Where to buy from?
The game can be bought here.
Disclaimer - We received this game from the TSAI organisation for review. Thank you to Peeyush Sekhsaria and Saurabh Dewan (from TSAI) for sending across the game!