I’m often asked for suggestions for appropriate toys for toddlers as well as “how” to play with them. Somehow babies and preschoolers are easier to figure out but Peaceable Kingdom sure knows what they are doing in creating a new collection of  simple, fun starter games to launch learning and pretend play! Our toddler was napping when his 4 year-old brother and sister wanted to play “Monkey Around.” We opened the box to find a fun life-size felt banana and 40 circular cards with pictured prompts for wiggle and giggle fun. With solo and together prompts kid started to excitedly anticipate their turn to give high fives, group hugs, make and bridge for the other player to crawl through (I did it by the way!) or balance the banana on your elbow. Our first card had us hopping around the room holding hands. We were hooked on this game from then on. They couldn’t wait to get their 2 year-old brother to join them. He got some help deciphering the drawings to learn he had to twirl in a circle and give a big hug. What a wonderful game to get parents and toddlers engaging in fun learning play as kids learn to follow directions, work together, learn new vocabulary, build fine and gross motor skills and eye hand coordination as we balanced the banana on our elbow. The kids loved being able to play a game as a family with their little toddler and he felt very proud to be a part of it too! This game was so popular that I kept hearing, “Can we do it again?” With a round of play consisting of 5 completed activities, this game is perfectly designed for the attention span of a 2 year-old.

Available at amazon. Click here