Wonder Forge makes such creative and engaging games for preschoolers, loaded with language learning! Their latest PAL Award winner, “Disney Palace Pets Royal Pet Salon” is loads of fun for little girls and encourages some language learning as players have to identify what room (or category) their objects belong to.
Set up is fun as the board unfolds to hold 8 divided stand-up 3-D rooms. Spin the spinner to find out if you collect some object cards and/or move a number of spaces through the doors to individual rooms: Nail or Hair Styling, Sudsy Spa, or Ribbon, Collar or Tiara Fitting. Try to match the posh pet products with those pictured on your cards and win the card to add up at the end of the game. The towel, perfume atomizer, body brush and soap reside in the Sudsy Spa. Ribbons, collars and combs are more obvious as to what room they belong in while the candelabra, apples, tea and candy are in the Royal Lounge. It takes some discussion to figure out where to look for some of the items.
I used this game for lively reinforcement for articulation therapy, taking turns after saying several responses using the target sound. It easily moves to pretend play as girls get lost in the fun of the room they landed in. Often I heard, “Where am I again?” as their palace pet went on an extra trip between turns!
It would also be a valuable game for working on description since the items are illustrated beautifully and one could use the item cards to guess what is being described.
