Orchard Toys - Shopping List, Old MacDonald's Farm and Incey Wincey Spider

A bit of an off-piste post but I consider the Orchard Toys games we have to be as good as many of the books we read! They offer consistent good quality and fun and are also very educational, what more could you want?

First up is Shopping List, according to their website it's their bestseller and it's easy to see why. It's packaged as suitable from three years although we got it last year for Rosie's second birthday and she found it enjoyable to play it as a one person game and fill all the trolleys herself rather than play it with other children. It's basically a matching game where you have to take a shopping list and trolley and then fill your trolley with the items you need from your list, it's good for extending a child's food vocabulary too.

Next we got Old MacDonald Lotto. It doesn't really feature Old MacDonald but has four different farmers with their various animals and tractors to collect. It's similar in concept to Shopping List but you can also make the animal noises! This is great with a child who can't quite get to saying the word yet but can make the animal noise to indicate what they mean. I would say it's a bit easier to play with a younger child making it definitely suitable from two years.

We have just bought Insey Winsey Spider which is aimed at three year olds to six year olds. It uses counting and shapes to help the spiders up the drainpipe and has added drama with a spinner which can wash them down again! We haven't played it that much yet but I can see already that it's going to be a game that we play over and over again.

So that's the games we currently have from Orchard Toys. I think we will be adding many more to our stock over the years! I have my eye on one of their new ones 'Where's my Cupcake?'!