When Jimmy was born Florence was tiny really but because she had a baby brother she seemed so grown up. She was two and four months and I can totally see loking back that I probably baby Jimmy compared to how we used to treat her – he’s the baby of the family (at the moment) so I guess that’s natural. She is a completely different character to him however so perhaps that’s why. Even at two and a half she had the ability to sit quietly concentrating on small tasks whereas her brother finds that sort of thing VERY boring. Jimmy can sit and watch TV (especially if it’s Horrid Henry on) but he’s not much interested in sitting patiently for other things which is a shame as when Florence was his age she used to really enjoy playing board games.
We would put Jimmy in his bouncer and get him out of the way so that Florence and I could play a game of snap, Happy Families or one of the board games in our collection. She was always super interested in playing and loved this time when her baby brother would be well and truly out of the way so that we could play. As he’s got bigger it’s become harder to contain hi though and although he is now way older than Florence was when he was tiny, he’s just not interested in sitting around the table and playing a game properly. That said, he no longer can be put in a bouncer out of the way and because he WANTS to join in even though he usually just ends up throwing the pieces around and being a bit of a monkey we couldn’t possibly leave him out.
We do make sure that Florence gets time to play the games she really likes but we have to find games that JImmy IS interested in and play as a family too. One game that we’ve found recently and works for both of them is Alladin’s Flying Carpet by University Games. It works playing as a family and because you can make it harder or easier depending on the players it means Florence can play it with a more tricky setting when Jimmy doesn’t want to be involved.
It’s a great game which takes little setting up and can even be played solo if you feel like it. The premise is to place treasures from a bag on the flying carpet which is suspended from a hook by a wire (it’s this wire which can be tightened or loosened to make the difficulty rating change) and try not to make them fall off. The winner is the player who finishes placing all the pieces on without making it fall and for some reason this idea has totally tapped into Jimmy and he loves it! Florence thinks it’s pretty great too. It’s simple, easy to play and fast. Perfect then! Officially they say it’s for ages 4+ but Jimmy at 3 is pretty good at it so we think it has bigger scope.
My only big bear about the game is the box really. It’s huge and unnecessary for such small pieces involved in the actual game. It’s not a biggie really unless space saving is important to you – which it is to me. It’s great that it comes with a bag to keep all the treasures in (and use during the game) but I would say a smaller box would be much handier! Gripes about the box aside, it’s a great game and one we will be playing often I should think!
We were sent the Alladin’s Flying Carpet game for the purpose of an honest review.
Follow