We bought this card game Jelly Elephant made by Orchard toys last year and it is recommended for children of three years and over. Our oldest son plays this with us now and does seem to love it. Orchard Toys are a pretty well known manufacturer nowadays of all sorts of toys and games and puzzles and I have always found them reliable and the manufacturer of some high quality products. This one is no exception. When we bought this it was only around £7 so pretty good to be honest with you. A lot of their games stimulate minds of young children and this particular game states that it will develop colour matching skills and develop personal skills. So the question is does it?

Inside the box when you open it up are 20 Jelly cards, 20 bowl cards, 4 Jelly Elephant cards, 6 puzzle cards and the instructions for the game.

The objective in this game is to become the player who has the most jellies in their bowl at the end of the game. To commence the game shuffle the cards up and place them in a pile that is face down on the table. Each player then takes it in turn to take a card from the top of the pile. If you pick up a bowl card then you keep it, but only one of each colour. Then if you pick up a jelly card that matches an empty bowl card they hold then they can keep that too. Otherwise you have to put the card back on another pile.

The Jelly Elephant cards come into play when picked up because if you do then you have to get rid of one of your bowl cards and place in the pile for discarded cards. Picking up a puzzle card means you have to start by making a puzzle on the side of where your cards are.

Once all the puzzle cards have been drawn the game is finished and the winner is announced. That winner is the player with the most bowls with jellies in them.

It's a really clever and easy idea that really does seem to help with matching colours for young children. They find it really fun too to play. They not only match colours but it helps them with their counting skills etc.

Each game is very short and an added bonus is that this can be taken anywhere you go as it's small enough to be a good travel game.