Wordsearch Junior

Wordsearch Junior – review and giveaway

Wordsearch JuniorWe 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.

Wordsearch Junior

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.

Wordsearch JuniorDSC09586

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.  DSC09590 Wordsearch Junior DSC09597 DSC09598 DSC09599So 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.

Wordsearch JuniorAs 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:

Wordsearch JuniorThe 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:

For the Red Picture Hint 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.

*********************

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!

******************

Terms and conditions:

(Please note that all entries will be checked against comments for validation).

Only the first step of the Rafflecopter is mandatory, all other steps are optional.  Only one entry per person is allowed (however, you can tweet with the bonus click entry daily as well to increase your chances).

This giveaway is for UK residents only.

Once the Rafflecopter picks a winner, I will check if the winner has done what was requested and I will contact them, if they do not reply within one week, the prize will be allocated to another person.

The giveaway will close on 6th December 2013 at midnight.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

165 thoughts on “Wordsearch Junior – review and giveaway

  1. Nature/animals because I have always been interested in everything to do with nature, animal, birds, fish etc 🙂

  2. 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 🙂

I'd love to hear from you and try to reply to all comments