playPlay Game Review - Fun Games For The Entire Family

3 words BEST GAMES EVER! playPlay is a unique line of creative play games designed to encourage creative and imaginative thinking in children ages 5 and up. playPLAY gives kids a new way to play together by combining creative activities like art making and story telling with game play. And they are made in the USA!!!!!!

A moms review:
We received all three playPlay games to review (which was a pleasant surprise) and LOVED them all. There are so many reasons we love these games and here they are.

-They can each be played a number of ways so they NEVER get boring.
-They are great for all ages.
-You win the games together as a family!!!!
-They are very easy to adapt by making them harder or easier if need be for younger children, children with special needs or older children.
-The games are educational and get the entire family working together, which you don't see very often with board games.
-They incorporate both left and right brain thinking where as most games only use left brain thinking skills.
-They are fairly quick to play and don't drag out and take FOREVER like some games (you know what games I am talking about).
-They keep my 5 and 6 yr olds attention.
-The children beg to play these games so we have played a game about 3 times a week since we got them.
-Playing a playPlay game is a great way to start or end our homeschool days.

The three games playPlay games are ColorPlay, StoryPlay and PaintPlay. Below is a brief description as well as our thoughts on each game.

PaintPlay:

Ages 6+, 2-4 players, The Original Art Making Game! 
Skills:  Color recognition • Matching • Creativity & Imagination • Dexterity • Cooperation
Work together to create a piece of artwork while trying to collect the 6 Paint Tokens—but beware! There are 6 “Meanies” that want to steal your creative juices. Includes everything you need to paint & play! 

This is the family favorite and we played this one the most. Everything you need to play the game is included. Note: you will need to eventually have more paint and paper on hand. We ran out of both after playing the game 3 times. Also since you will have a glass of water beside the game for the watercolors you may want to consider laminating the cards to make sure they don't get wet. Yup that happened to us because a clumsy boy knocked the cup over. The cards are made from a thick cardstock and did dry out but I wish I would have thought about laminating them before they got wet because they are kind of curved now and don't lay completely flat. 

The paper is the game board, the paint and watercolors are your game pieces and the cards provide the instructions. The directions for the "meanies" was a little confusing for the kids to understand so we made adjustments to the rules for that part of the game. The game is very simple to play and I would say children as young as 3 could even participate in this game with some modified rules. It was lots of fun to see our creation at the end of the game and know that we created a piece of refrigerator artwork together as a family. I really liked all of the educational aspects to the game. It teaches young children shapes and colors. And for everyone (even the adults) it gets you using your imagination. My favorite cards instructed players to paint things that were demonstrating feelings or human actions. Such as "Make a shape that looks like it's breathing." Or "Think of a smell. Pick a color you think that smell would be and add it to the painting." Another thing I liked was how the game taught children six very important character traits: Inspired, Dedicated, Brave, Inventive, Confident and Creative. This gave me a great opportunity to discuss these traits in more detail with the kids and why these are good traits to have. This one should definitely be added to the Christmas or Birthday gift list.

StoryPlay:

Ages 7+, 2-4 players, A Creative Storytelling Game!
Skills: Language • Creativity & imagination • Cooperation
The StoryPlay GAME offers kids a fun & creative way to create a story collage together. Includes a Write & Wipe game board and pen!

This game we only played a couple of times since we received it because it is definitely geared more towards children who are able to read and write sentences. But since there are three recommended ways to play it can be adapted for younger kids. This game has lots of little double sided tiles with words/pictures, a double sided wipe off board and a wipe off marker. We first tried the "notebook game". Since neither of my kids is really reading or constructing sentences yet I had to help them quite a bit but we still had fun and made a funny story. Next we tried the "name and draw it" game option. This was definitely more successful and lots more fun with children. We also tried the 3rd game option which is "totem pole." And this was the family favorite!!! This game provided the family with lots of laughs and giggles.

ColorPlay:

Ages 5+, 2-6  players, A Creative Color & Matching Game!
Skills: Color/Pattern recognition • Creativity & imagination • Matching & dexterity • Cooperation
The ColorPlay GAME gives kids 3 ways to play. Pattern It!  Work together to find matching patterns & create a color-wheel. Shape It! Find & match distinct shapes. Build It! Use the shape pieces to build and balance.

This one was my sons favorite. He is very tactile and analytical so this one really appealed to him. The game included a color wheel mat, double sided color/pattern shapes, shape it cards and a spinner. Again this game can be adapted for children as young as 3. The cards, shapes and spinner are made from cardboard so they are very durable. There are three recommended game playing options and we have done all three. My favorite game was "build it" where the family builds an abstract structure using as many of the color shapes as they can.

Some other uses for this game could be:
-teaching fractions
-teaching the color wheel (even though it is a simplified color wheel it still works for teaching color mixing and most of ROY G BIV).
-teaching shapes, matching and colors (great for toddlers and PreK)

Gwyns review (6 yrs old):

My favorite game is the PaintPlay. I like the game because I get to paint and pick out cards. I like creating a picture with my family. Sometimes the pictures are silly. I like it when I get the card that lets me get to control how mommy paints with her eyes shut.

Gwyn made this vlog about PaintPlay:


Rowyns review (5 yrs old):
My favorite game is the ColorPlay. I like it because I like the colors and patterns.

Links to follow:
-playPlay Website
-playPlay Facebook page 
-playPlay Twitter page

Where to buy:
To purchase these amazing family games contact Briarpatch or check your local Toys"R"Us, Barnes and Nobles or Specialty Store. The retail price is around $19.99.

Click here for more playPlay reviews from the The Schoolhouse Review Crew.

*Disclaimer - As part of the TOS Review Crew I received all three playPlay games in return for my honest review. Please note that prices indicated in the post are subject to change. I was not compensated for my review and all opinions are our own! Many of the links found on my side bars and in my blog posts are affiliate links. As a result, I might get paid money and I will most likely spend the money on homeschool supplies.