~~~ Orchard Toys ~~~

The Orchard Toys Company is a leading manufacturer of educational puzzles and games for children aged between 18 months and 12 years. Although my experience with their toys has been educational toys of nursery and infant school age. They have a reputation for great design, and superb quality toys, manufactured from cardboard in the main. Therefore they are environmentally friendly and recyclable; a great alternative to the plastic jungle and gimmicky nature of some toys nowadays.

~~~ Tell the Time Lotto ~~~

This is a game based on the classic game of bingo, where the first player to cover all their squares wins. This is a lovely fun game, and is aimed at children five to nine years old. We bought this game for our daughter when she was learning to tell the time in Year One, as an aid to help her understand better and also to differentiate between the time from a standard clock and that of a digital format.

~~~ Benefits ~~~

* Encourages observational and language skills (matching and speaking out loud)
* Aides developement of personal and social skills (taking turns)
* Links with National Curriculum in Maths (telling the time)

I also feel it aides with English and reading.

~~~ How to Play ~~~~

In the chunky box you receive 24 picture cards, these are placed down on the playing surface, and you also have four game boards. This game should be played between two and four players, but my daughter occasionally liked to play alone for extra practise.

Each player takes a turn at picking up a card, where they have to read the time aloud, on both the clock and the digital display. These are then matched to their game board, and the winner is the first person to cover all their pictures. Younger siblings could also get lots of fun from this game just by matching up the pictures. The game play isn't too long either, it could take anything from five to fifteen minutes, depending how lucky you are when turning over your cards. The benefit is that you can play as long as the child keeps his/her concentration; you don't feel you have to play until the end (like you do on a longer game like Monopoly etc).

The pictures give indications of what a child would be expecting to be doing at such a time; for instance, 7.00am or 07:00 would be a little boy or girl getting out of bed, and 12.00am or 12:00 would be someone eating lunch, 7.00pm, brushing their teeth, and 7.30pm snuggled up in bed. The pictures are very bright and colourful, and very appealing to little ones.

~~~ Alternative Game ~~~

An alternative game which I have tried with my daughter, which it doesn't state in the rules, is that we placed all the cards face down; she selected five, and then she arranged these in a timeline. This helped reinforce the fact that A.M. was morning, and P.M. was afternoon and evening. This game is so versatile.

~~~ Quality ~~~

The quality to this game is phenomenal. Although made from cardboard, and getting on for four years old it still looks brand new. It isn't a game we play as a family anymore, but we still have it to play for when nieces, nephew and friends with little ones come to visit.

~~~My Thoughts ~~~

Overall this is a great game, with an educational as well as fun aspect. The recommended retail price of £7.25 on the Orchard Toys website (15/01/12) is a bargain price. I highly recommend it - Orchard Toys branded products can't be beaten. Although ahead of her class with every other subject, telling the time was something she struggled with for a while. I do believe though, that this game helped in gaining her confidence through extra practise at home. Five out of five from me.

Thank you for reading my review, which may also be posted on other sites.