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Toddlers, or children between the ages of 1 and 3 are learning about themselves and how they relate to the world around them. After they physically explore their environment by walking, climbing, running and touching everything in and around it, they begin to learn about spatial concepts when following directions and communicating. First they learn about these concepts in a concrete way, following directions that relate to them directly such as:

• “Go throw your diaper in the trash.”
• “Put your sippy cup on the counter.”
• “Get your shoes from under the table.”

Hello Sunshine is a fun educational game for toddlers from Thinkfun. It is recommended for 2 or more players, ages 18 months and up. “Sunny” is a soft, plush sun with a small compartment attached with velcro that contains 18 double-sided cards with various illustrations. In the colorful pictures Sunny might be “on the table,” “in a box,” “in front of your face,” or “behind your back.”

To play the game, a card is chosen. For younger children, Sunny is placed in that location by a parent or sibling and the child finds Sunny during a game of hide-and-seek. For older children ages 3 and up, like my son, who can follow more challenging directions,  he enjoys being in control of hiding Sunny, using the illustrations from the pictures as a guide.

With Sunny, learning about spatial concepts can not only be fun, but for children the ability to follow directions and routines is a major life skill. When children are older and they begin to read and try to place letters within defined boundaries when handwriting, a solid foundation of these abstract positional concepts is crucial to their academic success.

Hello Sunshine was provided free to  facilitate this review from Thinkfun. Any opinions are my own.

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Roll & Play from Thinkfun Game Review – Roll & Play is another game for toddlers and preschoolers that helps children learn about animal sounds, colors, counting and body parts