Black Friday Amazon Finds
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During the holidays this year, take advantage of the time off of a school schedule for your little ones and make it quality time. When it comes to time spent on any activity with our younger kids, it’s more about the quality of time they get to spend with you, not quantity. Board games are a great way to spend quality time! If you end up pausing your game time and revisiting later, even better!
Apples to Apples Junior
Apples to Apples Junior: The Game of Crazy Comparisons!: The card and party game for ages nine and up. Players will delight in the crazy comparisons while expanding their vocabulary and thinking skills. The 576 cards provide hours and hours of fun! Ages 9 and older.
Apples to Apples Junior has players match their cards to the categories. Sometimes this requires a bit of creativity on the players’ part, which makes the game even more fun and challenges everyone’s language skills a wee bit more.
Baby Shark Animated Finger Puppet
Baby Shark Animated Finger Puppet: Meet the new baby shark Fingerlings! This adorable shark has so many ways to play, like a special fin that lights up different colors when you blow kisses! Shake him and his tail will flap from side to side! When you pet him, the baby shark will blink his eyes to tell you how he’s feeling. The baby shark will also give you magical kisses when you press his face to your cheek. Magic motion sensor allows you to move him in a wave-like motion to hear him splash around and break into the baby shark song!
Pretend play with puppets incorporates conversation, creativity, storylines, and, in this case, a song.
Mr. Potato Head
Playskool Mr. Potato Head Silly Suitcase: The Mr. Potato Head toy is a fun and entertaining toy for girls and boys ages 2 and up. The Mr. Potato Head Silly Suitcase kids’ toy includes a classic 8-inch potato body and lots of accessories for little ones to make silly and wacky characters! More pieces for even more mix-and-mash fun!
You’ll find Mr. Potato Head in almost every speech-language pathologist’s toolkit. It’s a great way to teach colors and body parts all while having a fun time.
Qwirkle: Board Game
Qwirkle Board Game: Qwirkle is MindWare’s must-have game and it is easy to see why! Simple to learn, yet strategic and exciting to play, Qwirkle is a favorite of all ages. Build lines of tiles that are all the same color or shape, with no duplicates. Score big by placing a tile that touches multiple pieces with matching attributes. Score even bigger by matching all 6 attributes and creating a Qwirkle!
If you mish mash dominoes and Uno, then you get Qwirkle. I love this game because it teaches patterns and colors, and you don’t have to be a reader in order to play. You will need a large table or floor space to play.
Double Bananagrams
Double Bananagrams: Double the fun with DOUBLE the number of tiles. Fast and frantic, now larger groups of players can race against each other to build crossword grids. And it still requires no pencil, paper, or board, just a little more speed to be the first to finish and claim Top Banana accolades.
Think of Bananagrams as a low-key Scrabble. It helps to teach spelling, reading, phonetics, and turn taking skills.
Days of Wonder: Ticket to Ride
Days of Wonder: Ticket to Ride: Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure game. Players collect train cards that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway. For 2 to 5 players ages 8 and older.
Families with older children may enjoy Ticket to Ride, as a game of strategy and bit of luck. You’ll learn the basic whereabouts of cities within the United States and Canada too.
Jann Fujimoto, MS CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist and owner of SpeechWorks. SpeechWorks helps toddlers to teens in Oconomowoc, Dousman, Delafield, Ixonia, Watertown, Hartland, Pewaukee, and Waukesha become confident communicators. If you have concerns about your child’s speech-language development, contact SpeechWorks at 262-490-5653.