Thanks to Mom Central, I was given the opportunity to review a new line of games launched by Cranium. I took the games Let’s Play Count and Cook and the Let’s Go To The Zoo Seek and Find Puzzle home to the delight of my 4 year old daughter.

I love the fact that Let’s Play Count and Cook can be enjoyed with a minimum of 2 players. The objective of the game is to pick any of the recipes in the cookbook and gather all the ingredients for it.

To start off, players have to put all the tokens face up on the game board. The player whose birthday is coming up next gets to start first by rolling the die and moving your chef the number of spaces shown, going in either direction on the play path. If you land on an ingredient you need for your recipe, add the token to the recipe. If you land on a star, add a special ingredient to the recipe -anything you want. If you are the player who manages to collect the last ingredient, you win the game! The winner gets to open the secret window for a surprise (find out for yourself!).

Let’s Play Count & Cook Game includes the game board, 20 ingredient tokens, 4 chef movers, recipe book, and die. My daughter gives it the thumbs up as she gets to pretend play with the game. Even my 8 year old son finds it interesting enough to join us in the game. Overall, Let’s Play Count and Cook is ideal for teaching counting, matching, turn taking and working together. Retails at $12.99 from Cranium.

 Let’s Go To The Zoo Seek and Play Puzzle is not the typical puzzle that springs to mind. Apart from putting the pieces of puzzles together, players also gets to search for animal and shapes in the puzzle such as peacocks and polar bears, lemurs and lions. How the game is played : Once the puzzle has been pieced together, each player is given three cards from the beginner or advanced deck.  Then, each player takes turn to search for the puzzle for the items on the cards. Mark your discovery by using the dry erase marker to circle it. The advantage of using the marker is that you can wipe the marks off with a dry tissue. However, it can get tiring wiping them if there are too many.

Let’s Go to the Zoo Seek & Find Puzzle comes in a box with 24 puzzle pieces, 30 cards and an erasable pen. Great for age 3 to 5 as these younger kids get to brush up on their spatial thinking, counting, color and letter matching and fine motor skills. However, I would not recommended it for older kids as it can be less challenging to them. Retails at $9.99 and available from Cranium.