new for us friday–finders keepers. . .

Owen is my game-guy.

He is forever up for playing a game, whether it’s a card game, a bingo game, a travel game, a board game, an outside game, a computer game, or an action game. It doesn’t matter.

He’ll play any game at any time.

So when our friends at GameWright sent us a box of new games to try out, you better believe my big guy was in heaven. Actually, we all were.

Today’s NFUF tops my big 4-year-old Owen’s list of best all-time games.

• Finders Keepers: This game is made for players aged 4 and older, and it’s based upon one of favorite children’s book series, Can You See What I See? (2002, Walter Wick), the books where readers are directed to search for certain items on each page. The books we all wish we published ourselves, before ole Walter Wick. . .

There are actually two ways of playing Finders Keepers; an easy way and a more difficult way. We’ve only tried the easier way at this point.

“Find Me” tiles and “Keep Me” cards

Our version is simple but so fun. Players get twelve “Keep Me” cards, and they place the cards face up in front of them. These cards have 3-6 random objects on them. Someone flips over a “Find Me” tile, and this tile has a picture of one object on it. Players scan their “Keep Me” cards for the picture on the flipped tile, and each card containing that object is moved to the player’s “Keepers” pile.

The object is to be the first person to have all of their twelve cards move to their “Keepers” pile.

Sometimes we don’t move our cards to a “Keepers” pile; instead, we start out by arranging our cards in a fancy pattern or shape (diamond, square, “O”, or whatever), and we just flip our cards over once we locate the object. I’m not sure how this started, actually, but it works.

This game, like Hisssss, is awesome on so many levels. It’s made well–like all of the GameWright games. It’s fun and engaging for little guys–okay, and their parents as well.

I love, love, love that this game is familiar to young readers even before they play it because it’s an extension of a book that many little ones love to read.

There’s no reading or math involved in this particular game, but players must be able to organize their cards and scan them in such a way so that they can match the object to the cards in front of them without missing a beat.

And some cards are tricky! Objects are enlarged, shrunk, twisted, flipped, and sometimes even hiding behind each other, forcing players to pay attention and really focus on locating the “Find Me” object.

We’re always up for trying something new, and games, well. . . new games for our New For Us Fridays are a special treat. I’m adding Can You See What I See? to my list of “must have’s” for holiday time and birthdays, and if you are in need of some help in choosing a game, consider checking out GameWright’s website. It is beautiful, easy to navigate, and one of the most organized sites I’ve seen.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to GameWright for sending us a bunch of super-cool games, which we’re looking forward to trying out in the next few weeks. Like every product I mention on teachmama.com, my opinion is wholly my own, influenced only by my three little gamers, Maddy, Owen, and Cora.