I love to discover new toy companies that provide beautifully designed, fun, educational games. I was introduced to Peaceable Kingdom at the Toy Fair in February and just had the opportunity to review their games with kids and they met the criteria for fun–kids couldn’t get enough of them. Here are three games to add to your speech bag and they are affordable too!

Race to the Treasure requires some spacial, math thinking and explaining as kids set up the board grid to get ready for play. Players have to place a path from Start to Finish rotating the path cards to pick up three key cards and an Ogre snack before enough Ogre cards are collected to make him the winner. This cooperative learning game teaches collaboration, problem-solving and social language skills. I played Race to the Treasure today with a child on the autism spectrum and his typical peer buddy and they laughed, moaned when they got an Ogre card, and talked their way through placing the path cards to their advantage, naming the cards they needed next, a bendy one, three points, and straight, so they could snatch the keys and win the game. They didn’t mind that the Ogre beat them twice–it just made them want to play another round!

Age 5 and up

Click here for my full review.

Seeds for the Birds drew kids in with the theme of mama bird trying to get more seeds to feed her babies than her competition, the squirrel looking over her shoulder. Kids set up the perimeter of the board with random squirrel, bird and numbers of seed cards turned over while 9 birdhouses are left to collect seeds. Turn over a bird and she can collect any seeds on the bird feeders that are in her row in the grid, up, down, sideways or diagonal. Kids collaborate on where to place seeds on the bird feeders, depending on options for who might collect them. Again this is a great game for social language,  pairing a child with speech and language difficulties with a typical peer or sibling to get the conversation going and make decisions on strategy.

Age 3 and up

Click here for my full review

Feed the Woozle draws kids into loading up their big plastic spoon with goofy, tasty treats like toenail toast and making their way to deposit them in the Woozle’s mouth. With three layers of play, kids from 3-6 years old can play together with increased challenges. The older the player, the greater the challenge as to how to get to that Woozle without spilling your treats. 4-5 year-olds have to spin to learn their method–such as hula dance, bunny hop or go crazy while older players have to get there blindfolded only using the verbal clues from fellow players. Again the collaboration, problem-solving and negotiating all build social pragmatic language skills in kids. What a perfect game for lunch bunch at school!

Age 3-6

Click here for my full review.