Run around the room backwards – JD, 4
This week, Netmums arranged for us to road test three games from Mattel: Scrabble Junior, Roboto Uno and Chameleon Crunch. Here’s what we made of them.
Scrabble Junior
With JD just beginning to solidify his understanding of phonemes / graphemes and enjoy independent reading for the first time, Scrabble Junior has proved to be right up his street.
My mum visited this weekend so the five of us (daddy, JD, grandma, me and Miss J on my knee) sat down and played on the simplest side of the board, which involves taking it in turns to put two tiles on the board inline with preset words. A player receives a token each time they are the one to complete a word.
JD really enjoyed playing, as did we, and it’s easy to see how he’ll be able to introduce some rudimentary strategic thinking as he becomes familiar with the words.
In time, we’ll be able to flip the board over and make use of the side aimed at children aged 7+, which is essentially a simplified version of the adult Scrabble game, meaning Scrabble Junior will have a long, happy life in this house.
All in all, I’d say it’s a great game, well worth adding to the family Christmas list with its reasonable price tag of £21.99.
Uno Roboto
This is the classic Uno card game (similar to ‘crazy eights’) but with a key difference: a cute little robot quiz master who speaks and interacts as the game is played. Players can record their names and a ‘house rule’ (JD seems keen that only ‘run around the room backwards’ will do) and Roboto will interject at random with little rules and requests that must be followed. He has a cute voice and comical sound effects that add to the fun and the game actively encourages matching, number and colour recognition skills.
As the game is aimed at children aged 7+ and JD is not quite 5, he struggled a little with the rules at first but soon got the hang of it and very much enjoyed interacting with the robot. The only slight issue is that we’re a noisy lot in this house and found that we needed to use the highest volume setting and the repeat button regularly to catch what the robot is saying.
Roboto Uno is suitable for 2-6 players and priced at £24.99.
Chameleon Crunch
Chameleon Crunch caused quite a lot of excitement when it arrived in our home. Once switched on, the chameleon crawls around the room, opening and shutting its mouth in a way that resulted in shrieks of laughter from both children as we attempted to throw plastic bugs into his mouth. Yet more shrieks occurred when the little critter burped them all out!
Up to four players can join in, chucking in bugs until the chameleon is full, at which point he stops and the winner is the person with the most bugs in his mouth.
Amongst all the excitement, it was great to see JD practicing his aim and coordination skills while reinforcing his understanding of colours, counting, and matching.
Priced at £19.99, Chameleon Crunch would make a great toy to fill up long rainy days and school holidays – you’ll just need a reasonably large room to play in as he needs space to circle around.
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