playPlay

From the website:

"playPlay™ is a unique line of creative play games designed to encourage creative and imaginative thinking in children ages 5 and up. playPLAY™ gives kids a new way to play together by combining creative activities like art making and story telling with game play.
The playPlay™ line of games was developed and designed by CALICO, LLC and published by Briarpatch."

We received three...yes, three new games from playPlay a few weeks ago and you can just imagine the excitement around here when a box full of fun, colorful games arrived.  A chorus of, "Can we play them now?!" could be heard throughout the house.  As you can see from the pictures, playPlay certainly did their job making these games look enticing and my kids seemed to be hooked before we even opened the boxes.

ColorPlay is a game meant to help reinforce color recognition, pattern recognition, and matching skills.  The gameboard is a large color wheel on a mat.  Players take turns spinning the spinner and matching up the correct puzzle pieces on the board.  As with all the playPlay games there are more than one way to play the game, and these are not competitive games as there are no "winners".  My kids were slightly taken aback by this...we actually enjoy friendly competition around here...but it didn't stop them from enjoying the playPlay games.  ColorPlay is geared more towards my 3-5 year olds.  My older kids are past the matching/color recognition stage and they didn't seem too interested in this one.

StoryPlay, on the other hand, was definitely enjoyed by my big kids.  My little ones really couldn't participate in this one because they aren't reading yet.  But our big kids took turns creating a story using the included word and picture cards.

Once their story was complete, they could simply erase the dry erase marker from the board and start again.

Another way to play StoryPlay, was to randomly draw three cards and use them to create a caption.  Of course, they needed to draw the picture that went along with the caption!

 

StoryPlay seemed to me to be the most "educational".  I loved to see them working to create creative and descriptive sentences.

PaintPlay Game was hands-down the kid favorite.  "You mean there is actually real paint in there, Mom?!" the kids exclaimed as we opened the box.  The answer is yes, paint and paper are included in PaintPlay along with the PaintPlay spinner and cards.  Players take turn drawing cards and follow the directions painting what the card says.  All players paint on the same piece of paper creating a PaintPlay group masterpiece once the game is done.  Obviously, materials in this game are consumable, but easily replaced (just paper and watercolor paints).  Our kids ages 3-11 all enjoyed this game!

playPlay games should be available at retail stores such as Toys R Us and Barnes and Nobles.  You can check out the playPlay website and facebook page for more information.  Also, head over to the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog for more reviews of playPlay games.

Disclaimer: I have been given the wonderful opportunity to review many homeschool products over the last few years. The only compensation that I receive for my review is the free product. I feel truly blessed to have had the opportunity to participate in review groups and I have enjoyed trying out these products and giving you my honest opinion. Pin It Now!