Mother Hen is on her way to the coop, but she needs your counting help to gather her many little chicks who are scattered all over the farm. Players spin the spinner to find what picture Mama Hen can move toward. As she does this everyone counts each move. The number of moves she makes dictates how many chicks can be gathered up and put into the chicken coop. But watch out! If she lands on a fox you have to take one chick out of the game. The game ends if all the chicks are back safe before Mama Hen gets there. This is a young cooperative game that encourages kids to work and count together. 3 & up. 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. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

In this color matching game the object is to get the owls home to the forest before sunrise. Players draw cards and move the owls along the pathway of matching colors. But watch out! If you draw a sun card from the pile you must move the sun toward sunrise. Be careful! All the owls must get back before the sun makes it all the way to dawn! The rules are simple, the turn taking is quick and there's even a little science thrown in with the concept of owls being nocturnal creatures. The colors on the playing board are not the usual primary colors, so there is an opportunity for extending the language of color names to include: lavender rather than purple, teal blue rather than just blue, hot pink rather than red, chartreuse or lime green rather than just green plus bright yellow and orange. A cooperative game for 2-4 players. Also see Count Your Chickens game from the same company. 4 & up. 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. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

It's hard to find anything new about a game of concentration, yet this Memory Match 16 does exactly that with an elegant and pleasing new design. It will also save you from losing any of the usual cards. It comes with 8 double-sided cards that slip into a wooden frame. 16 red wooden disks are put into place and players take turns uncovering two at time to find matches. Find a match and take the disks. The player with the most disks wins. The cards have relatively small graphics, so this is going to challenge visual dexterity as well as memory. It's the kind of close looking that kids need to develop for reading and seeing the fine differences between "cat" and "cot" or "cut." So, think of this as a pre-reading game, as well. There are color boards, numerals, letters, bugs, and animals. They say 3 & up. We'd say more like 4-6. There is also a Memory Match 36 with smaller disks and more challenging matches to make.

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. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

Based on the small I Spy books for preschoolers, this is really a simple matching game that uses pictures to cue the sight word riddles on the game boards and playing pieces. Each player gets a game card with four playing pieces. Read the riddle and punch out the playing piece with the matching picture.

You'll want to help beginners with the first few readings, encouraging them to notice that all the riddles begin with the same words and end with a picture and matching word. Once kids know what the agreed on word is that identifies the objects, the game continues in reverse, as children read a sentence and then find the matching playing piece. It's not a high roller kind of game with much suspense or tension. But it introduces the idea of sight words in a playful way and kids who are eager to learn how to read. These are not about beginning sounds or learning to sound words out. These are sight words with picture cues for true beginners. Rules for using the playing pieces for a shape or concentration games or for a rhyming are also offered. There are 5 different games suggested for 1-6 players. The game is marked 4 & up.

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. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

A clever take on the book Madeline At the White House.  The game includes eight landmarks from the capitol including the White House, the The Lincoln Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, etc.  The landmarks are placed on the floor.  Each player is given a magic carpet that has all of the landmarks printed on it. The object is to spin and travel to each of the landmarks and be the first to collect all eight. Our testers loved the active aspect of this game. If you're planning a trip to DC or have just been, this will be fun way to preview or re-visit your vacation. 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. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

We gave the original Lucky Ducks game an award years ago when it first arrived on the scene. In this new edition, the game play has not changed but Ernie has been added to the motorized game board. Players stand in front of one of four color symbols- their home base. When the game begins players take turns picking up a duckie hoping to be the first to collect three ducks with their home symbol on the bottom. It's a fun matching game that reinforces color and shape concepts as well as turn taking and learning about the gamesmanship reality--you win some and lose some. There is no reading involved in this preschool matching game. The company has signed a verification form complying with our safety requirements. We did not independently test this toy in a lab.

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

A nice twist on the classic game of Memory. Here the play pieces are car characters from the movie Cars 2. Once you make a match, the cars are placed in the grandstand (a nice touch).  You also keep score with a racetrack and two cars (the wheels do not move, a bummer to some of our testers)...also a fun twist that works with the theme of the movie. Many of the games for Cars 2 are geared to kids 6 & up, this is one of the few that is really meant for younger fans. And if you've ever played Memory with a four year old...you know they usually rock at these games-- making this a happy experience!

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. Click here to purchase the product on Amazon.com.

A pie full of 60 miniature fruits comes ready for a variety of learning and pretend games. There are two big tweezers for lifting and sorting and a divider inside the pie shell for sorting the fruits by color or type. The pieces of this toy can be used for sorting by various attributes, to reinforce color words as well as knowing and naming fruits. As kids begin to work at math skills the fruit counters are also useful for demonstrating or making concrete simple number facts. There is an activity guide included. This is more like math equipment used in schools, but may be useful for kids who need playful reinforcement of those basics.

NOTE: There are lots of small pieces in this collection and it should not be used with children who still mouth their toys. Marked 3& up.

SNAP: Sorting by attributes is more fun when there are lots of pieces to handle. Use the pieces in this set by talking about one attribute at a time. Avoid talking about multiple attributes until one attribute is firmly mastered. For example: put two colors out in a mixed up pile and help your child sort the two colors into two separate baskets or cups. At another, time sort by fruit types. Find all the bananas - whatever color they are. Beginners are not ready to sort by two or more attributes such as find all the bananas that are green. Holding onto the green idea or the banana search is enough for beginners. These fruit pieces are also useful counting games and showing kids what we mean by 2+ 3 or 5-3.

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

Reach inside of Ruff's little house and try to find two matching bones. Designed to develop the child's tactile sense, each pair of fabric and plastic bones has a distinctive texture. There are 20 bones with 10 textures and developing a sense of touch also involves language to describe the textures and one little fabric dog--no doubt this is Ruff. The bones can be described with words such as silky, spiky, grooved, smooth, bumpy, and fluffy.

SNAP: This is an excellent choice for kids with visual disabilities who need to develop not just their touch, but ways of describing what they feel at their fingertips. You can use this little house for other games by making pairs of other objects with distinctive shapes or textures. Cut a sponge into pairs of matching shapes, such as triangles, circles, squares and rectangles. Or use household items such as two cotton balls, two spoons, two small plastic blocks, two bottle tops, etc.

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

If you have a fan of Angelina Ballerina, she's going to enjoy this active game that requires flexing both her ballerina skills and ability to follow a dance routine. Each player moves along the play board where she may be asked to practice doing certain ballet positions (first, third, reverence, tendu front, etc.). When the first player gets to the end of the play board, she is then required to repeat all of the positions on the cards that have been turned over. This can be challenging--but since there are several opportunities to "practice" - most kids will get the routine. There's also the "it's ok to peek" approach when playing this type of game with older preschoolers and early school aged kids.

Now that's only part of the game play. The actual winner is the player who has collected the most number of star cards of the same color.  Winning is therefore determined by how many times you land on practice (where you get the most number of star cards) and how many cards are of the same color.  This aspect is random. 

Our testers were much less concerned about the star cards-than doing the positions for the dance routine. The game comes with a bonus CD with music from the cartoon. It doesn't really fit with the ballet dancing that each dancer will do at the end of the game. Our suggestion to have some pretty music on the ready for your ballerinas!!

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.