Review: Mattel's Molehill Mania Children's Game

I have to say that a simple and quick game is always appreciated in our house, whilst it is wonderful to sit down and have an hour game of Junior Monopoly it is not always what my 5 year old twins want.  Fast and furious is quite often the order of the day and Mole Hill Mania fits this bill perfectly.

Mattel sent this game for my 5 year old twins to review and we have all been having fun, gameplay takes literally about 5-10 minutes and their big brother JJ (who is 9) has shown himself to be a champion, much to the distain of Miss E.  Basically you have a little plastic molehill that you fill with coloured moles and then you have two mallets each and the 2 players whack the moles out of their molehill and then use the mallets to gobble them up, first one to 6 moles collected is the winner.

 

There is also a slightly harder version of the game where the two players choose a colour and then have to collect their own colour moles and the sixth mole has to be the only red one. I was chuckling away watching the kids scrabbling around the floor for their moles. Playing it Christmas day with presents and paper still around make for such fun in searching.

Molehill mania is a hit in our house and has become a valuable addition to the family games shelves. I have tried really hard but I cannot think of a con for this game, so I’ll leave you withal the plus points.

Plus points

·        Practically no setting up and very easy for a small child

·        Sturdy plastic toy

·        No batteries required

·        Reasonable price, I found it for £14.97 at Tesco (goof for collecting/ spending the clubcard points!)

·        Really quick and simple game to play

Suitable for age 4 upwards.

I'll leave you with Miss E's face when JJ won yet again!  Yes I did have to step in and play with her in a less competitive way....

 

Disclosure: We were sent this toy free of charge by Mattel for the purposes of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

Review: Pictionary Family Edition

I have such fond memories of Pictionary; it is the game that my first year at University was based on. That makes me sound really square doesn’t it?  I wasn’t. We did all the normal student stuff and had a good time but I was also lucky enough to have been put into a guest house with 6 other people who were great. So many a night after tea we would get Pictionary out and have a couple of hours fun. I probably particularly liked it as my friend M and I nearly always won.  Without any cheating (of course!) we could always seem to tell what the other was thinking and drawing.

Pictionary Family Edition is much as I recall from when I was younger but just simpler than the full version game we played. In case you have never played before I’ll explain.  You need at least 4 players so you can have 2 teams of 2. Then in each round within the team you have one person drawing and one person guessing. The drawer takes a card which has an item on it – this could be coin, eyebrow, apple etc and they have to very quickly draw it or something that will represent it and then the guesser has to do just that, shout out what they think the item might be. But be careful - shout out too loud when the answer is only close and not exactly correct and you might give it away to the opponent guesser as they may just rephrase your answer and snatch the glory! The first team to guess right wins that round and they get to move on a space on the board. First team to the end of the board is the winner.

As this game is pitched at kids aged 8 plus there are 2 levels of play so that all can feel involved and enjoy the challenge. A nice addition to this version is that at the start of a round a theme is announced so that the children are set off thinking in the right direction and hopefully do not go off on any random tangents. There are also two sets of cards, adult ones with harder clues and ones for the you ger players.

We really enjoyed playing this game, the issue for my family comes in that not all of our children are old enough to play and as you need 4 people it is not always easy to get everyone together. We had to wait for Nanny to visit to make up the teams and then when you have 3 adults and just one child it becomes a bit lopsided and my dh and I ended up giving JJ quite a number of chances to get it right. I did see an option for 3 to play and then one person remains as the ‘picturist’ or drawer as I call them and the other two guess. This game would be perfect if it was pitched at a level where my 5 year old twins could join in, but seeing as they cannot yet read fully that makes it difficult. It won’t be long though…

Pictionary Junior is a super game and one we would happily recommend for hours of good traditional family fun. It is a great price at Argos at the moment, just £15.98 - definately a good Christmas buy!

Disclosure:  We were provided with this game for the purposes of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

Review: Mattel Junior Scrabble Boardgame

It's funny how things work out, a few weeks back JJ played scrabble with his Nan whilst we were at her house for Sunday lunch. It was his first time to play and he had an absolute blast, coming away saying we needed to get him scrabble for his birthday. Grandma, who watched him play tells me he was really very good and far beyond his years - that's my boy!

So imagine my delight when I was contacted and asked if we would like to review Junior Scrabble. JJ and I have played this quite a few times so far and I have to admit that I have been enjoying myself. I've never played scrabble before, I did not really think it was my kind of thing, but it seems I am mistaken.  It has been quite fun to stretch myself and increase my vocabulary.

Junior Scrabble is billed as being suitable for 2 - 4 players ages 5 - 10 years, so I did have my reservations before we played as JJ is 9 and very intelligent for his age but I need not have worried, there is enough in this game for him. I also worried that the age range was a bit wide, I know what a struggle it is to get my 9 year old to play with his 5 year old sisters.  Their abilities are just on different spectrum's at the moment but what I did not realise is that Junior Scrabble has a double sided playing board, so there are two games.  How sensible is that?  And how wonderful to be able to buy a board game that grows with your child.

I played the younger game with my 5 year old twin girls, at the moment they are both just learning to read but their abilities are quite different. One of them found it far easier than the other but they both enjoyed working with Mummy to try and figure out the letters and sounds that go in the words and match the pictures on the board.

Game play only lasted us about 15 minutes as their attention span when it involves work is still fairly short but I can imagine that in six months or so they will be much better equipped to be able to do the whole grid in this first game.

The real success for us was the more grown up scrabble board.  It does differ slightly to the adult version in that there are not any scores on the tiles but fundamentally it is the same game with slightly easier rules. A game takes JJ and I anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour depending on how fast we manage to block ourselves!

Here are the plus points of this board game -

• Education dressed up as fun, what more can any parent ask for?
• The board, box and tiles are all well made and look durable, as if they will last a long time.
• There are 2 age appropriate games, so it has longevity.
• A game can be played fairly quickly if need be.
• The game is good value for money at £17.99 on Amazon. It would make a great Christmas gift I am sure.
• The instructions are easy to read and understand and JJ was able to sort it all out and set u the game.

And the cons -

• No major faults or flaws to note to be honest! The only comments that JJ made was that to make the game more fun he would have liked scores on the tiles and a holder for his tiles so I could not see what he had!  Ohh Mr Competitive.

I would happily recommend Junior Scrabble as a great educational board game that is heaps of fun too.


Disclosure:  We received this game free of charge for he purposes of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.