When my husband and I were in downtown Chicago with Charly we happened upon a game store that was having a closing sale, and I found a kids game called “Think and Roll- Your Childs First Game.” I bought it for her even though she was only 10 months old. Every couple months I’d take it out to try it with her. At first she’d try to bend or throw the cards around, and I’d put it back away and try again in a few more months. Well right around 18 months old she got it. And she LOVED it. We’ve been playing it almost daily since.
Think and Roll- Your Child’s First Game
How to play: It comes with cards in each of the colors you see above. The child rolls the cube and chooses a card of the corresponding color. Each color follows a theme of sorts; for example, the green cards are all animal sounds and the yellow cards are all emotions. The child then performs the task on the card.
This game teaches so many skills. We have been working on taking turns, the order of operations to perform a task (first roll then draw the card), recognizing colors, recognizing animals, knowing parts of the body, practicing our gross motor skills, practicing counting, acting out emotions, and using verbal skills.
Sometimes she just wants to forget the cube altogether and play with the cards. Sometimes she wants to do all the animal cards then all the find the color cards, etc. Sometimes she wants to find the color card she likes then turn the cube to match it. I usually follow her lead and play the way she wants.
Since this game was such a hit I decided to try to find another and came across a matching game at Target called Seek-a-boo.
How to play: Select a group of 6 circle cards and their corresponding matching drawing cards. Have the child turn over all the circle cards face down and then draw a drawing card.
The child then has to try to remember where the corresponding circle card is located. They will chose and flip a circle card over. If it’s not the right image I say, “no try again,” and she flips the circle card back over and chooses again, but if it’s correct I say, “you found a match!” and take both cards. Once all the cards have been chosen you can choose another group of 6 cards to try.
Each group has a different theme such as clothing, food, animals, etc. The groups are determined by an outer circle color like blue, yellow, purple etc. This game has helped us work on colors, memory, and especially vocabulary! Charly is a bit behind in her speech, and I love how she has learned to say all the words on the food cards already. The downside is then she wants to go in the kitchen to find each food and eat it! (Toddlers are so easily side-tracked!) We even sometimes incorporate gross motor skills by spreading the cards in a huge circle in the living room, and she has to run to each one to check to see if it’s a match.
This has quickly become a new favorite at our house and usually she wants to do every single group of cards! These are my two best recommendations for introducing your 18+ month old to games. We are always looking for new ones to try so please comment with any recommendations you may have!
Leiterman Littles 