SimplyFun Lily Pond - Educational Game to Practice Early Reading and Spelling - an Engaging and Fun Toddler Game - 2 to 4 Players, Ages 4 & Up

One of my 5 year olds favorite games!

My granddaughter loves this game! We are always trying to find games that she will love and learn something! Fun and creative.

I am a fan of this board game for young toddlers. We have a 3-year-old son, who we are trying to introduce to these types of board games recently, and he was able to follow along with the gameplay just fine, though I did have to prod him a little bit to use the "best" path. He especially kept forgetting that he could use the center rock as one of the spaces to go through, and he also struggled a bit with understanding that the same letter space could not be used more than once in the same turn. The main positives from the game are:1. The gameplay is simple to set up and follow along. It is designed in such a way that it is very easy to coach your toddlers as you go along in terms of the directions (for instance, the word cards are played face up, so you know exactly the cards that everybody wants to complete), so it will be a great game to get your toddlers used to the concepts of taking turns and following the gameplay rules.2. It is a fun way to introduce concepts of spelling and phonics. Our son knows the entirety of the alphabet well, but he is still learning in terms of what the sounds each alphabet makes and to read words from the spelling; this has been a really good way to get him more familiar with those concepts.3. Because the gameplay is simple, each game takes very little time (with 3 players, we were done in 15-20 minutes).4. Board game materials are of good quality. The board itself is thickly built and well-designed, with the alphabets very easy to read and strategically spread out. I wasn't as big of a fan with the cards (I thought that they could have been made a bit thicker), but they still aren't that bad. Both should hold up pretty well to the rigors of toddler play. My son also loved the little frogs that are used as pieces (to the extent that I had to persuade him not to play with them separately).5. I found the rules to be well-written. There is definitely some amount of skill involved in the game, especially since others can also mark off the letters that are passed during your turn. You basically need to think about not only the shortest path to complete your cards, but make sure you do it in such a way that you aren't helping others while you do so. In addition, because two frogs can't occupy the same letter space, you could be strategic in blocking off a letter than an opponent needs to play in your turn. Our 3-year-old son needed some prodding to be able to think through those types of things; I am sure he is going to learn and get better with both age and experience playing the game, which is going to be an awesome thing to see.Overall, I think this is a well thought out board game with great benefits for learning spelling and reading. This will be a great choice for those looking for a fun way to help your children in those areas, or even for those who are looking for a nice family time game to play with your young toddlers.

What we really like about this game is that it says in the instructions how to adapt it for different ages. And it's easy to use those different adaptations together so that everyone can play and still have fun. You use shorter words for younger kids and longer words for older kids. There's also a level of strategy that can be used for how to move around the board in the most efficient way. The rules also have you read aloud the letters as you go over them to help with letter association but by the time your child is old enough to play the game as written they will already be very familiar with their letters. The spelling is not a challenge for my 7-year-old but she enjoys the strategy of figuring out how to collect all the letters she needs. So while we make this game work for us I feel like the difficulty of the game as designed is for a higher level than the reading ability it's supposed to be teaching. However, since my kids enjoy it and we do play it I'll keep it at four stars. But I would not count on this teaching a young child how to read without adapted rules.

This is a very well designed and executed game perfect for little ones just learning to play board games and to spell!

- Played with my 5 year old (not in kindergarten yet) and he immediately wanted to play again. It gave us an opportunity to practice phonics- vowel diphthongs, and also practice his enunciating his initial ‘s’- It’s simple enough, and if your kiddo knows all of the letters that’s enough to play, they don’t need to read.- Each game is played with three words to spell each (which is the perfect amount) and you adjust the difficulty by how long the words are (there are three decks to choose from of 3, 4, or 5 letter words)- Some words take fewer or more turns to spell based on where the letters are on the board (p-i-g the letters are spread out, so it takes longer than y-a-r-n because those letters are all right next to each other) This helps balance the game.- Because the letters are not in alphabetical order it requires more recognition, but the card in front of you has the word spelled out and a picture (which led to my kiddo saying w-h-a-l-e spelled dolphin, which means he’s not actually using his phonics but the picture)- The decks are a decent size, but because of the picture it may prevent actual reading. You could substitute in your own word cards (without pictures) for older players. But the pictures are useful for pre readers, younger players, and for the 4 year old suggested range- This is also truly a game so there is a bit of strategy and player interaction (you can claim a letter a player hopped on if it’s what you need next too, and you can block a path for another player, as what words each player is building are common knowledge- The die only goes to four, with 2 on there at least twice if not three times. I felt like I was always rolling 2s. But again, this helps the game not go too fast.- My kiddo had a hard time keeping track of his remaining jumps AND his letters at the same time, so the limited movement helps with that.- While there is some strategy it’s very dependent on the words you drew, how the letters on the board are placed, and what you roll- all things outside of your control.- The cards, tokens, die, and frogs are all well made and feel good in your hands.- The box has a special place for each piece and closes snuggly. Well made, simple to scale and play, enjoyable for kiddos, learning concepts reinforced. I’d recommend this!