Friday, May 12th, 2006
Review: My First Brain Quest Fruit Dominoes by University Games
I am excited at the prospect of finding tabletop games which are oriented toward toddlers as young as two years old. My First Brain Quest Fruit Dominoes by University Games is such a game.
Fruit Dominoes functions just like a normal dominoes match, but this set of tiles is especially friendly to the youngest players.
Most toddler domino tiles have artwork depicting two sets of numbered objects side-by-side. For example, two balls and four kittens or three carrots and six toy blocks.
However, Fruit Dominoes have a single fruit on each end of the domino card. So, for example, a card might have one strawberry and one apple. There are 28 total cards depicting seven fruits (apple, banana, cherry, grapes, lemon, pear and strawberry).
Matching a single object instead of a set of numbered objects simplifies the whole game. At 22 months, Little Miss has quite a time. Admittedly, she’s not playing by the rules yet. We just take turns drawing tiles and finding places to properly fit the tiles, sort of like a puzzle activity. She has quickly learned to say “fit” and “no fit” when assessing locations to place a tile. And, I always arrange the game so that she plays the last tile, which seems to give her great satisfaction.