NEW GAMES INTRODUCE THE CONCEPT OF ‘WE’
Toy Stores Now Stocking Five Cooperative Games By Peaceable Kingdom From ‘Count Your Chickens’ and ‘Hoot Owl Hoot’ To ‘Mermaid Island’
From KidStuff PR: Typical games, from checkers to cards, manage to have one player win and everyone else lose. What’s the fun in that? Sharing, giggling and cooperating (plus no hurt feelings) are the wonderful concepts behind Peaceable Kingdom’s rollout of five delightful board games where team effort is the bottom line, not winning or losing – a life lesson that will carry youngsters into adulthood.
With appealing names like Count Your Chickens and Hoot Owl Hoot, kids quickly learn to play against a common obstacle – like the fox in the hen house – instead of a playmate. No longer will sensitive children be reduced to tears after losing a board game. Playing cooperative games allows youngsters to work as a team: sharing, strategizing and building healthy relationships. The bonus comes if the whole team wins. If they lose, the defeat is shared amongst the players. And then they’ll shout, “let’s play again!”
“At Peaceable Kingdom, we’re not educators or therapists,” says company President Donna Jaffe, “we are moms and aunties, caregivers and game players. We created these particular games because we believe games are a wonderful way to teach and we want the kids in our lives to learn that working and playing together can be empowering and fun!
One mom who has played the games and happens to be a school psychologist heartily agrees. “The games’ ability to stimulate compassion in kids,” explains Dr. Leslie Striar, a mom of three, “is one of their best assets. In a cooperative game, when one player has a small defeat the others feel empathy. When you are all in it together, compassion comes naturally.”
Creating a habit like cooperating, especially among children, takes practice. Preschoolers immersed in helping Mother Hen find her baby chicks in Count Your Chickens or aiding the stranded mermaids before the Sea Witch finds them in Mermaid Island help them internalize a habit of cooperation. The positive lessons of any one of these games makes cooperating second nature! Best of all, they can be played in 10 to 20 minutes, perfect for the youngest members of the family.
Peaceable Kingdom, makers of award-winning children’s games, stickers and activities since 1983, takes cooperation one-step further by manufacturing their cooperative games using soy-based inks on FSC paper. Game parts are made with corn-based plastic. The 100% green ingredients are the company’s way of co-operating with the planet.
Available now online at www.peaceablekingdom.com and at specialty stores and online boutiques, the
five new board games allow children to play with respect and compassion and of course, have fun! Three of them were invented by award-winning, professional game inventors and the other two were developed by the company’s in-house product developers. A plus for parents and gift-givers -- each of the cooperative games offers learning skills like counting, taking turns, color recognition, linear thinking, problem solving, memory and shared decision making.
My take: We were sent this game, Stone Soup, to try out:
From the classic tale of cooperation comes this
simple game where players work together to
“cook” a soup by making matches of ingredients.
Match all of the ingredients before the fire under
the kettle goes out and everyone wins! Peaceable
Kingdom adds a twist to the game – one magic
stone card can turn any Fire Out card face down
again on the board. Players decide together when
to use the magic stone card to help keep the soup cooking! Ideal for up to 6 players. This memory game takes about 15 minutes to play.
Now let me be the first to tell you that my 8 and 6 year old will fight over ANYTHING. If my daughter says the sky is blue, my son will argue it is white. Just because he can. This almost constant bickering gets on my very last nerve (raise your hand if you know EXACTLY what I am talking about). Now that every last reader I have, now has their hand in the air, let me tell you that even while setting up this COOPERATIVE game, my two managed to fight (over who got to set up the tiles - see my daughter's scowl below??) I wasn't sure how well this was going to work AT ALL.
Luckily, they got into the spirit of the game right away (here is my son with the lucky Magic Stone). Not only did they work TOGETHER to get the soup done before the fire went out, they actually encouraged each other when a match wasn't made or a fire out card was uncovered. I was astonished. We played it over and over and had a blast working together.
Peaceable Kingdom happily points out that other manufacturers such as HABA and Family Pastimes offer cooperative games. Now fear of losing, tears and bad feelings can be eliminated when setting up the board game.
To order online, see other products or see a video of children playing cooperatively, visit their website,
www.peaceablekingdom.com or on Facebook
ABOUT PEACEABLE KINGDOM: Peaceable Kingdom was founded in 1983 with a single product – a children’s poster based on the artwork from the classic children’s book Goodnight Moon (printed by the son of the book’s illustrator). Twenty-eight years and more than 5,000 SKUs later, the company has grown to be a leader in juvenile stickers Peaceable Kingdom’s mission is to make good, do good, and be good. Which means: to create fresh, fun, award-winning products that educate, inspire, and tickle funny bones, to donate to charitable organizations that support the well-being of children, to remain committed to socially-conscious manufacturing practices and sustainable and eco-friendly materials, to maintain integrity in all business relationships and to support the people who support us! The Peaceable Kingdom philosophy – come into the kingdom and join the fun! Visit www.peaceablekingdom to learn more.
This review was sponsored by
P.S.: Be sure to check out my new fan page for Did You See That? on Facebook!
This post was written for Peaceable Kingdom and KidStuff PR who provided the game for review. I was not compensated in any way except for the complimentary game (a USD $14.99 value).
My opinions are my own.
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