First Games
This is a sponsored review, part of a MomCentral blog tour.
When I was asked if I would be interested in participating in a blog tour for some new Cranium games, I jumped at it, because we’ve enjoyed everything we’ve tried from them. The Super Fort was N’s big Hanukah present this year, and Hullaballoo has been a mainstay of kids parties for several years.
The games are part of their new "Cranium Bloom" line, which is aimed at preschoolers. The boys were excited to see what was in the package that arrived, and hovered over as I opened it. N loves to cook, so he immediately focused on the Let’s Play Count and Cook Game. It’s a cute game, where by rolling a die, you find the ingredients needed to make different dishes. Each round only takes a few minutes, and after I played it with the boys once, they understood the game well enough to play against each other without my help.
Things I liked about the game:
- Quick play is a big relief to any parent who has desperately tried to cheat to let their kid win chutes and ladders just to end the game.
- Everyone works together to find the ingredients, so it’s basically luck that determines the "winner." So the 4 year old and the 7 year old can play together and both have a chance.
- The game has some good suggestions for how to build on the cooking theme.
Things I didn’t like about the game:
- Not particularly interesting for adults. Probably inherent in a game for preschoolers. For slightly older kids, I think Cranium’s Balloon Lagoon is more fun, because there are some activities (like launching the frogs into the pond) that are challenging for adults too.
- The box only had pictures of girls and women.
The other game they sent was the Let’s Go to the Zoo Seek and Find Puzzle. This is a puzzle with big pieces, that once assembled turns into a "can you find" game? This was of more interest to D than to N, who likes very simple puzzles, but gets frustrated with harder ones easily. So this got less play, but I still think it’s a nice idea.
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While I’m on the subject of games for young kids, I wanted to toss out the names of some others that we’ve enjoyed. You really don’t have to torture yourself with Candyland:
January 21st, 2008 at 1:23 am
Hisss is a favorite around our house. I do think the very best first game for a preschooler is Go Away Monster, though. It takes about two minutes to play a round, it’s fun from about age 3 to age 6, and it’s not totally boring even for the adults.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:12 am
We loved Hisss in this house, too, and we’ve found a few guests have enjoyed it also. Also enjoyable (Hungryboy, 4 went through a phase of demanding it every evening) was Monster mixup, in which you have to ask yes no questions in order to find which monster your opponent has.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
If you haven’t tried Sleeping Queens, especially for your first grader, I highly recommend it. Bit of strategy, bit of luck– it was the rage of our son’s kindergarten class last year. (Even though the box says 8 and up.) I got reports of kids begging to play before breakfast on school days. It’s still the one game I can play over and over and over again. We’re also now heavy into Rat-a-tat-cat and Blink.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Petunia got Balloon Lagoon for Christmas, and she mostly likes it. We have “helped” her a little with the frog-flipping and spinning the wheels to make pictures (she doesn’t get the idea of getting them all going at once to see what turns up). She really likes the music that the timer plays, and she likes it when it’s not her turn so she can dance!