Off the Cuff: Cooperation....not Competition

It's not often that I come across a product that I love so much that I feel a need to share with others, but that is what I am doing here today! Recently I applied with Tryazon to try out three new board games that encourage cooperative play rather than competitive play. In our house we are big board game players, especially in the winter and at family gatherings, so the timing of it was actually impeccable! The three games we were provided were Hoot Owl Hoot, Race to the Treasure!, and Sunny and Stormy Day. Sunny and Stormy Day was a matching/memory type game that included a charming little book to read before playing to introduce players to the idea of high and low points during a day, and how you can always turn it around. This was the game that Olivia was able to participate in most fully and really enjoyed playing with the little bag of "coins!"

Hoot Owl Hoot was an innovative new game where you're attempting to help little owls make it around the board and bag into their nest before the sun rises completely. Each player starts with 3 cards which can have either a color on it (similar to Candyland) or a sun. A color allows them to move to the next color on the card, whereas a sun card advances the sun a space, moving it closer to sunrise. What was unique was the cooperative aspect where you were encouraged to move different owls each turn to help each other out in getting them back in the nest in time, instead of the typical scene where everyone has just one owl and is competing against each other to see whose can get to the finish first. Emma and Olivia loved the anticipation of getting a new card and turning it over to reveal a color or the (GASP!) sun!

The third and final game was called Race to the Treasure!, and while Emma really was able to engage fully, Olivia was a little more of an observer rather than a player for this one because of the abstract and critical thinking that it required to manipulate the tiles into a path that would lead to three keys that were needing to be collected before the Ogre reached the finish line. However, Olivia did contribute in an insanely cute way by calling the villain an "Ogurt" (i.e. yogurt!) which we all got a kick out of! This game the board won on, as we were just one square away from the end, but I found it to be a good teaching moment for both girls.

Competitiveness is something that I think is healthy in older kids, but when you're 4 and 7 learning to cooperate and work together to solve problems is going to serve you much better than competing against each other. These three games did a wonderful job in fostering that cooperation that I so desire for the girls to obtain and exercise throughout their lives.