This give away is now closed. Thank you to all who entered. The winner is missdv! Check your inbox from an email from me.
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We are big LEGO fans here at Planning With Kids, so we were pretty excited to take the new LEGO Creationary Game through its paces. This game along with another nine form part of the LEGO’s latest product range – the world’s first constructible board games. The games range from $14.99 to $49.99 and from our experience with the LEGO Creationary Game, they will make fantastic Christmas presents for kids aged 6 years and up.
In the LEGO Creationary Game a player rolls the dice to determine what category they will have to build – vehicles, buildings, nature or things. Then players choose a card and need to build what is on their card. There are three levels of cards to choose from, each of which has a different degree of difficulty. This is what we loved about the game:
More than one way to play the game.
The game rules give you three different ways to play the game. We could change the type of game that we played depending on how many children were playing and the ages of the kids playing. It was great to play a few games of each to work out what type of game set up worked best for us.
Encourages you to make your own rules.
The instructions actively encourage to make your own rules. They also wisely point out that you need to make the rules first before you start playing and make sure everyone understands them. We modified the rules to allow the preschooler to play – he could make anything he wanted, where as we had to build from the prompt on our cards.
Challenges Perfectionists
A tip for anyone who plays this game with kids: make sure that you explain to them that there creation doesn’t have to look exactly like the picture. Reinforce that the aim is to build a structure that enables other players to guess correctly what you have built, you don’t have to have an image perfect replication of the arc de triomphe! It took a number of turns before one of my kids, who has a perfectionist tendency to relax and really enjoy it. He was getting frustrated and not being able to make it look “right”. By having limited pieces to choose from, it requires the kids to think broadly and use their imagination to work with what they have.
Spans across age groups
The recommended age for the LEGO Creationary Game is 7 plus, but we managed to turn it into a family game when we changed the rules. In one game we had teams of two, where players worked together to build their structures. We paired the older and younger children together. It was lovely to watch the team work between the pairs, as we stipulated in our rules, that both kids had to build, not just the oldest.
Give Away
One lucky reader of Planning With Kids can win their very own LEGO Creationary Game valued at $49.95! It will make such a great Christmas present. To enter all you need to do is leave a comment below. The competition is open to Australian residents only, with a limit of one entry per person. Entries will close Thursday 30th September 2010 at 5pm AEDT. The winner will selected randomly and will be announced on the blog at the top of this post on Friday 1st October. Good Luck!
Planning With Kids received the LEGO Creationary Game courtesy of LEGO.