We recently had a little delivery from our friends at Drumond Park, this time our box contained Wordsearch Junior, which has recently been released for children aged 4 years and over.
Monkey will be 4 next month, so yes, he is right at the bottom of the age range for Wordsearch Junior. But the great thing about this game is that there are 3 levels – picture pattern recognition, word search with picture hints, and for young readers – the word only search. So as Monkey develops his letter recognition skills over the coming year we’ll be able to advance from the picture patterns through to the picture hint level and so on. So as a parent, I know that Wordsearch Junior is going to be a long-lasting, educational game.
Wordsearch Junior consists of the Wordsearch play board, 9 double-sided games discs, offering 6 different games over the 3 different learning levels (18 games in total) and 4 sets of 35 gaming markers in green, yellow, blue and red.
The game can be played with 2 to 4 players. As I’ve mentioned above, there are 3 different learning levels to Wordsearch Junior, offering assistance with language, letter and pattern recognition.
I will concentrate on the basic starter level using the Blue game discs as this is level is where Monkey is comfortable right now. As you can see the Blue game discs are all picture based with the emphasis on pattern recognition and spatial awareness. The game disc options are themed – Zoo, Pets, Fruit, Fairy Tales and Balls.
We decided to start with Fruit (obvious choice with the family connection!) and objects that are easily recognisable to get Monkey started, we then moved on to the Balls disc. This also taught Monkey a new word as he’d not come across Basketball before. So how do you play? The game play for the Blue Picture Pattern level:
The youngest player starts play by turning the playing disc clockwise until the first 3 x picture pattern appears in the ring gap. The play then tells everyone what the pattern is, and has to find it on the board – the pattern can be hidden in all directions – horizontal, vertical, diagonal or even backwards, but always in a straight line. This game is so good for getting kids to concentrate – something that Monkey needs to work on. It’s obviously great for problem solving too. There can be more than one solution available on the puzzle discs. Once someone has found the pattern, they shout out and placed their coloured markers on the board.
As you play the game, if one or more pictures of a newly found pattern already has a marker on them, these can be replaced by the coloured markers of the new pattern finder.
The game continues until all the patterns have been found or if one player has used all of their markers.
To start a new game, just clear the markers and replace the puzzle disc!
Monkey hasn’t played a game like this before and it took him a few goes to really understand what we were trying to do, especially when someone replaced his markers! But I can see this being a really good game to help him improve his concentration over the next few months.
He is getting better at recognising letters and was keen to try the Red Picture Hint Puzzles discs, so we will see how we go with them over the coming months – although we are a way off him being able to read the whole word.
For the Red Picture Hint Puzzle games:
The themes are – House, Farm, Summer Holidays, Animals, Forest and Garden. Player one turns the playing disc to reveal the first word with picture hint. The player reads the word out loud – such as Fence, Bee or Tree, the pictures and words are hidden from left to right, top to bottom or diagonally and as with the Blue Picture Patterns, the words are always in a straight line. Again the first player to spot the word covered it with their markers. If a new word crosses an existing one, then again, the markers are changed. Plays ends in the same was as with the Blue Picture Pattern game.
For the Green Word Only Puzzle games:
The themes are Clothing, Body, Sports, Transport, School and Food. Player one turns the playing disc to reveal the first word. The player reads the word out loud – such as Clock, Arm or Shirt, the words are hidden from left to right, top to bottom or diagonally and as with the Blue Picture Patterns, the words are always in a straight line. Again the first player to spot the word covered it with their markers. If a new word crosses an existing one, then again, the markers are changed. Plays ends in the same was as with the Blue Picture Pattern game. The vowels are also shown in red to help young readers distinguish them from the consonants.
I love the fact that Monkey can grow with this game and I plan to review Wordsearch Junior again as he reaches each new milestone in the years to come. Watch this space!
I’d recommend this game to any family with children from Monkey’s age upwards as a great educational game, with an RRP of £18.99 it gets the thumbs up here.
disclaimer: we were sent this game for the purpose of review, our comments however, remain our own honest opinions.
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The lovely team at Drumond Park have kindly offered you guys the chance to win the Wordsearch Junior – complete the rafflecopter to enter – good luck!
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food and drink.
It would have to be food as my son loves it lol
My wordsearch theme would be varieties of chocolate.
Animals x
Football teams
It would be a space one as my little boy wants to be an astronaut 🙂
All thing girly!
Christmas!
christmas
Prince and Princesses
My son is mad for star wars so I would do one with all the Starwars characters
Everything Batman!
Animals
animals!
I’d pick lots of long words and try and get as many in as I could!
The beach!
an accessories wordsearch 😉
A day at the beach
Mine would have to have a cake theme 🙂
Animals! 🙂
Disney 🙂
tv and films
Fruit & veg
would have to be moshi monsters. As both my children love these.
Animals, this would keep my kids entertained x
i think mine would be animals
I think I would choose music
Hmmm farm animals?
Themed around my Children
I think toys and board games
countries
I think I’d choose something to do with jungle/wild animals
Toys
Animals
christmas time
Outer Space
Animals
My son is obsessed with Skylanders so it would have to be Skylanders characters!
Jungle theme xx
childrens tv
My daughter suggested bugs 🙂
funny words
Movies and tv programmes
Family and pet names
Robbie Williams
Swear words (for adults only, of course).
cities and countries
animals my grandson loves animals
horses and ponies.my daughter loves them
Popular Music groups and performers
Skylanders
Animals.
Holidays
………….music
Nature/animals because I have always been interested in everything to do with nature, animal, birds, fish etc 🙂
Christmas!
Pets
Dinosaurs
Jungle animals
Pirates for my son
Children’s favourite tv characters
animals 🙂
Probably one on weather lol
Xmas 🙂
Animals and chocolates
Colours
Pirates as my son loves them
weather
fairytale characters
dinosaurs cos my son loves them
Make up probably!
I’d buy door or wall stickers so that each child could have something.
Sweeties and food!!
super heros!!
Music 🙂
Dinosaurs
The Seaside
Computer brand names of the 80s. Be able to apply some of my useless knowledge!
toy story my grandson loves toy story so much ive become quite an expert on it!
Childrens programs
different items of technology
Animals
my favourite foods!
For my daughter it would have to be animals.
Since we’re animal lovers, it would have to be animals. 🙂
cricket
Food or Harry Potter
sweets!
Cartoon characters
Food-yum yum
Childrens TV programmes
easy Bon Jovi Songs 😀
Good call – I like that idea!
cocktails
Christmas Theme
I’d have a chocolate themed wordsearch!
My OH would be with you on that one!
Food!
christmas x x
Christmas
Sweeties!
All things Disney 🙂
farm animals
Animals!
Animals
Geography x
It would have to be football related for my football crazy son
Prehistoric creatures
Dinosaurs!
dinosaurs
Nature – because my son and I love nature.
It would be animals.xx
Wildlife, all my kids (and me) love wildlife, so using it to encourage them to read/learn would be great
Soaps or tv programmes x
Cornwall 🙂
Christmas
cars,trucks,planes ect
Cartoons
Food and drink.
vehicles – my sons love anything with four wheels!! 🙂
Christmas!
A Christmassy one, as thats how Im feeling right now 🙂 xx
dr who themed
Animal and wildlife
Dinosaurs
disney films
Christmas
christmas food
Sweets and chocolate bars
Football
mythical beasts
Fairy & Princess theme for my little girl 🙂
Tinker Bell and the rest of the fairies
animals
History
Fairies
boys names after having four sons boys names are hard to find lol
Butterflies
Minecraft
Disney characters
Disney 🙂
Motor Cycle Speedway
childrens tv
Disney 🙂
childrens tv characters so i can play the game with my daughter xx
Countries
Animals x
disney films 🙂
animals
I would do a space theme! My little boy is space mad & often pretends he is blasting off in rockets or spaceships so he would love it 🙂
know that feeling well
History
Countries 🙂
Cruise Ships
Colours
Supermarket. Help them to learn food items.
Historical people
My personal Christmas list hehe
football
hoope i win one for my youngest
dancing
Sweets!!!!!!
Home made Indian dishes
Food!!!
Kel x
Animal Themed 🙂