Excuse me! Did I hear a burp? (Orchard Toys Greedy Gorilla)

Member Name: kingfisher111

Product:	Orchard Toys Greedy Gorilla
Date:	20/01/09 (335 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fun and educational

Disadvantages: none

In my opinion, Orchard Toys always make really good games for young children and this Greedy Gorilla game is no exception. Many of the games hve something a little quirky or unusual and in this case there is a gorilla that actually burps! More about that later...

The main purpose of the game is to help children understand about healthy eating in a way that is fun. When my youngest daughter received this as a Christmas present it was actually quite timely as both my girls have been learning about healthy eating and this game is a good reinforcement.

It's actually a very simple game to play. The game is for up to four players and each person has a very attractive menu card to play with showing lots of healthy items. Like all Orchard Toys, these are on good quality sturdy card with a wipe clean surface. There are also 24 healthy food cards and eight junk food cards. The idea is to have all of these cards mixed together face down on the table. Players pick a card in turn. If the picture shows something healthy they can look for it on their card but if it is an item of junk food they must feed it to the gorilla. This is where the fun really starts because when the gorilla is fed something he always burps! Players have to remind him to say excuse me too! You can imagine the hilarity this causes every time! The winner is the first player that can match all six healthy items on their card.

This is a very entertaining game and highly educational at the same time. I was really pleased to note that both my daughters were very clear about which foods were healthy and playing the game did provide quite a few talking points as they wanted to know why some foods were not so good.

The gorilla is really just a cardboard box with a picture of a gorilla on the front and a slot in his mouth. It also has an on and off switch so you can choose not to have burps if you want. It would have been great to have something that was more of a gorilla shape but my daughters don't seem to mind. Also, the gorilla will burp whatever you feed through his mouth so if children are playing on their own there is nothing to tell them if they are right or wrong about the food. I guess it would have made it a much more expensive game if it had a device that differentiated between the two types of food.

Like many games, Greedy Gorilla is great for encouraging children to take turns and to share. They also need to observe carefully and do lots of thinking about the different types of food there is. On the box it tells you that it links to the government's Early Learning Goals and also National Curriculum Key Stage 1 Science.

Overall this is a great game suitable for children between the ages of four and eight (and their mums and dads too!). It's available from Amazon for £9.78. which seems a reasonable price for such a good game!

Summary: a great game to encourage healthy eating