A honeycomb shaped playing board mimics nature but gives strategy gaming a new look. A spinner tells what color comb you must push out of the honeycomb - but watch out! Be careful not to let the bee on top fall! It's a game that requires dexterity as well as strategy. Loading the honeycomb also calls for patience and thinking. Marked for 4 & up, this is more like a 5-6 & up game. A good one for family fun.

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

We had good fun racing to beat the Ogre as we connected the pathway cards and collected the key tokens. This is a cooperative game that helps older players guide younger players with discovering strategy skills as well as learning to share decision-making. Set-up involves some math grid concepts, though the bigger lesson is teamwork with players beating the Ogre rather than each other.   It's an easy to learn game for 2-4 players that takes about 20 minutes and good for mixed ages. 5-50+.

Age: Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Unlike the usual game of adding items without making everything fall, this is a cooperative game where you want bugs to fall out of the web, one at a time, without letting Willy the Spider fall out of the web! This is a fun game for 2-5 players to help kids learn to use a scissors and learn to the concept of left and right. Set up will need help by an adult, as the paper web is stretched across the cardboard twigs. Now the cardboard bugs are poked into the web and Willy is added, too. Play begins as each player takes three snips with the safety scissors trying to make a bug fall. There are three levels of play. Game One is just about the cutting and having some strategies to avoid Willy from falling. In Game Two players pass the scissors to the person on their left. In Game Three you draw a card that says if you pass the scissors left or right and how many cuts you can make. Each game takes about 15 minutes. This comes with 50 stretchy paper nets but you can order more for free by contacting the company at info@peaceablekingdom.com. It's marked 3-6. We think older 4's and up will do best

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

A clever, fast, and easy-to-learn game that is played cooperatively. Put all the bug playing pieces on top of the rug. Players take turns spinning the spinner to find out what color bug they should remove and put under the rug. Once there is a color that cannot be found (this happens about half way through) you have to put a big grey stinkbug on the rug. Now the attribute that players have to find and remove changes from colors to big or little eyes. Watch out! You want to get rid of all the bugs before a second stink bug has to be added to the rug. The object is to get rid of all the bugs before all three stinkbugs are on the rug! Changing attributes calls for some flexible thinking.  A fun game for developing color, shape, and simple counting skills.  3-6

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Designed for beginning game players, this is a cooperative game that involves some fine and gross motor skills, simple counting, and turn taking. Set the Woozle playing board with its big mouth on a table that kids can easily reach. Players take turns tossing the die and putting that number of snacks in a big plastic spoon. Now the trick is to carry the snacks on the spoon to the Woozle without spilling them. For every piece that gets in the Woozles big mouth you get a yummy card. There are thee levels of play. Level one involves simple walking to the Woozle and feeding it. Level Two involves following the directions on the spinner. Players may have to walk backwards, hop or wiggle and still not spill the pieces. The third version calls for a blindfold! This will make a fun party game. Level Two sounds like the most fun. Blindfolds are sometimes a little scary for threes...but try it once they have the hang of this game.

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Tuck these into your travel tote for playing simple matching games. Players each begin with eight cards and draw from the pile to make sets of three matching cards. The object is to be the first to get rid of all your cards. These are over-sized colorful cards illustrated by Bob Barner and labeled with animal names. 5 & up.

Age: Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

A set of 72 colorful matching cards for the classic game of concentration with unusual illustrations featuring kids playing all sorts of sports. A good opportunity for developing knowing and naming language to match the images as well as visual perception is seeing matches. This is one of a series of matching games with different themes. Kids who are crazy about dinosaurs will like this Dinosaurs! Matching Game and for expanding language skills look for their Animals! Matching Game. The sets come packaged in sturdy boxes that have magnetic closures. All three sets are handsomely illustrated by artist Micah Player. These are marked 3 & up, though we think slightly older kids will enjoy them more.

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2012. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Fans of Chuggington will enjoy playing with the small train playing pieces on the long game board that is set up with three color coded tracks. Without looking at the picture, one mystery animal card is put into the safari park at the far end of the track. Each player is also given a "guessing" disk that will be used at the end of the line. Now, players take turns hitting the spinner and moving whatever train the spinner is pointing at. If the train lands in a station along the way the player gets to pick up an animal to put into their freight car. There is no race between the trains and no one moves just one train. When all the trains reach the safari park players put their special guessing disks on the animal that they think is the mystery animal. Now the mystery animal is revealed. If you guess the animal you win the round. There's a good chance that no one will guess. But this is not a game so much about winning as it is about playing. They say 3 and up, we think 3's will need a partner to handle the tiny playing pieces. It's a good cooperative kind of game that we think kids of 4 and 5 will like best.

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2011. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

In the middle of receiving what seemed like an endless supply of plastic toys (many, we should note are on our award list), arrived a package that seemed like a throw back to a different era. The Original Egg Game consists of a circular board (you can buy a small, medium or large board) that is made of particle board material and a stone egg.  For this holiday season, we received a Five board set in a big canvas storage bag. A great set for a group setting is $100. Or you can start with a single and grow from there.  Now, we have to tell you that if you have trouble spinning a top (like some of us at the toyportfolio, you may have trouble getting started).  You have to be able to spin the egg--and if you watch the video from the company they do provide a number of suggestions that proved to be most helpful!).  Specifically we found the two handed start method most useful.  In any case, once you get the egg going, how long can you keep it going--alone or with a partner holding the board.  This really becomes a group activity that invites group problem solving, trial and error...and along the way, there's a great deal of laughter.  You can purchase a  small board with one egg for $10 or the medium board (shown in the picture) is $20 and comes with two eggs.

Age: Early School Years, Later School Years, Tweens, Teens, Adult. Award Year: 2012.

This is a matching game with jumbo dice and reversible playing boards, so you can play two different games. There's a shape matching game on one side and building matching game on the reverse. First person to win four in a row gets to take a piece of an four-part intergalactic figure to match his space card. Winner is the player who collects all four pieces. Or, play the harder game. Flip the cards and the die with playing pieces that look like part of the intergalactic building pieces. This second game is harder, calls for looking closer at the shapes and details. But we think kids will like the novelty of building these little figures as they play a game of chance. There is no strategy or reading required.  The company has signed a verification form complying with our safety requirements. We did not independently test this toy in a lab.

Age: Preschool, Early School Years. Award Year: 2011.