Over the last couple of months, I’ve been starting to play some simple games with Autumn. Whilst she’s still a few months shy of 3 years old, she is able to grasp the concepts of some 3+ games. When I attended BlogOn last month, Match-a-Rhyme caught my eye as a game she’d like to play.
There are four boards, so you can have up to four players. Each board has three rows of pictures on, each of which show the story of a popular nursery rhyme. You lay down the cards face down and take turns to pick one, placing the ones that match your board on the corresponding picture. The first person to fill their board wins! We then sing through all the nursery rhymes on them.
From a learning perspective, this game is really good. It works on Autumn’s concentration and turn-taking skills. The placing of the cards on the board helps develop her fine motor and spatial awareness skills. Meanwhile, placing the cards on the correct picture on the board tests and develops her matching skills. For some nursery rhymes in particular, the pictures can be very similar (see Little Miss Muffet above, for example). Therefore, this takes a little more concentration. Looking at the order of the pictures and pointing at each as we sing the nursery rhyme also teaches her about sequencing.
Autumn really enjoys this game and looking at the pictures. It is clear what each of them are and they look really bright and appealing to small children. We are yet to play it without her asking to play it again as soon as we’re done. She always insists on singing through the nursery rhymes several times, too. Often, she’ll place my cards on my board as well as hers, as she enjoys matching the pictures up. Both educational and fun, this game really does tick all the boxes for us!
Disclosure: This game was gifted to us by The Green Board Game Co. for the purpose of this review. All views and opinions are honest and my own.
