Colum loves the idea of a board game, but Colum is also a three-year-old boy. Sitting down to a game of Snakes and Ladders, then, is an exercise is slowly mounting frustration for all involved. Either that or a random game of tossing dice and moving little pieces around willy-nilly until Irene comes over and tries to eat one. He just doesn’t have the patience for any sort of prolonged roll-and-move, turn-taking game. So when he unwrapped this Pengoloo game at Grandma and Grandpa’s on Christmas Eve, I was skeptical. Great. Another game that I don’t have time to play during the day that will infuriate his sister and ultimately end up in whining and floor-rolling.
Amazingly, this is not the case. We played the game this morning, while Irene was awake, and actually had a great time. Here’s why:
- Simple yet fun premise. The game consists of twelve hollowed out penguins that sit over coloured “eggs.” Players take turns rolling dice with the different colours on them and then trying to guess which penguin is sitting on the colours they turned up.
- Age appropriate skills. This is basically a matching and memory game which is just perfect for my 3.5 year old. (The box says it’s for ages 4+.) The instructions also suggest you can vary the play by introducing banter and trying to confuse the other players, which sounds like fun for older kids.
- Made out of wood, yo. Every part of this game is made out of a solid piece of wood that won’t get broken and is lovely to handle. This is especially important when you have young boys because you won’t believe the stuff they are able to break.
- Short and sweet. Now I like spending time with my kids as much as the next guy, but just not whole long chunks of it at once. I’ve got two kids under four and a part-time work-from-home job and a blog and a variety of other projects and no child care and no cleaning lady. If I know I can whip out a game and play one or two rounds and then put it away again in under 15 minutes, then it’s a whole lot more likely to actually get played with.
So, yes, I totally and wholeheartedly recommend this game for preschool-aged kids. And what does Colum say? “I like winning.” There you go.
Available at Chapters/Indigo for $29.95 in Canada.