Avalanche Fruit Stand – a game review for Learning Resources – AD sent for review

disclosure:  we were sent this game for the purpose of review, our comments, however, remain our own honest thoughts.

Daddy P comes from a long line of Greengrocers and we’ve always made a point of sharing his family history with our son.  I love games, toys and books that relate to our family – whether it be a love of nature or the ‘family business’.  When Learning Resources asked me what I would like to review for them recently, I told them there was one game that really stood out for me and I was thrilled when they agreed that this game would be great for us to try.

Say hello to the Avalanche Fruit Stand game.

www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com Avalanche Fruit Stand game, Learning Resources

I loved the whole idea of the game and especially as we could relate it to Daddy P and his old market stall days.  It is also very different from any other game we have.  The game is aimed at children aged 3-7 years so is perfect for a 3 and half-year-old.

The game is really easy to set up, we had lots of fun just doing this.  The Fruit Stand is made of thick card so should withstand some abuse from my son and comes pre-assembled – all you have to do is slot the ‘game name’ in the top of the Stand, and select one of two ‘angle’ options for the stand.  The steeper the angle of the stand, the harder the game becomes (thought this was a great idea, as the game will grow with him).

You then stack the 40 pieces of plastic Fruit in the stand to begin the game.  You should be aware that the fruit pieces are quite small, fine with my son, but if we had little ones visiting I would probably not have this game out.

www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com fruit, Avalanche Fruit Stand, Learning Resources

Once you have completed stacking the fruit, you are ready to begin.  The only thing I don’t like about this game is that the instructions for play are printed on the back of the fruit stand – not ideal for oldies like me, with rubbish memories!! You can have up to 8 players and I think the grown-ups can have as much fun playing this game as the kids!  The aim of the game is to be the first to collect a piece of all five of the fruits without having a fruit avalanche on your hands.

www.over40andamumtoone.wordpress.com setting up the Avalanche Fruit Stand, Learning Resources

Each player takes it, in turn, to spin the spinner, if it lands on a colour – you have to use the tweezers to pick a piece of the relevant coloured fruit, if you land on a number, you use the tweezers to pick the relevant number of pieces of fruit from the stand and if you are lucky enough to land on the star you can pick up any piece of fruit from another players pile and add it to your pile.

So this game is great for fine motor skills, something that my son definitely needs to work on.  He did cheat a lot and use his fingers – so it will be interesting to watch his development.  It’s also wonderful for colour recognition and counting and the ‘star’ element will be great at building up his strategic skills in the future.

If you cause an avalanche as you try to pick a piece of fruit, you have to put all the fallen fruit back in the stand along with any pieces you may have already collected.  Be warned, if you have spun the wheel, not yet picked your fruit, but have an avalanche – you still lose your fruit and have to start again!

The game also comes with a different idea for gameplay, so this adds another element and keeps the game fresh.

As with everything my son has already found another use for the items in this game.  He has a big tractor and trailer and the fruit pieces were scooped up in one of his diggers, tipped into the trailer and driven off by the tractor.  I did tell him that it probably should have been the other way round!

Our little vlog …..

We all really like this game and are waiting for the weekend to put Daddy P to the test – are his fruit stacking skills as good as they used to be! The Avalanche Fruit Stand game currently retails at £15.95, and with the different play elements, I think this is great value for money.

 

 

 

19 thoughts on “Avalanche Fruit Stand – a game review for Learning Resources – AD sent for review

  1. This looks fun and may help encourage children to eat their fruits! Also like the idea that you could use the fruit to play shop!

  2. This looks like a great game, definitely a bit different and I think the little plastic fruits would appeal to my 2 making the game fun and something we would all enjoy.

  3. I love the video – and the tweezers are a great idea… brilliant to develop fine motor skills!

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