Monkeying Around With Curious George

Cordy watches Curious George on PBS Kids every day. It's on right when she gets home from school, and she's grown to love George's antics.

So when I received the Curious George Hide and Seek Zoo board game, I was hoping she'd be interested. It was out of the box for only a minute before she was pushing the red button on the walkie talkie that came with game.

The game is designed for ages 4-8, and combines a traditional board game with matching skills and a little bit of physical fun, too. Each turn, a player pushes the red button on the walkie talkie to get their instructions from the man in the yellow hat. If he tells them to go to a certain part of the zoo, they draw a card from that area and place it on the board in the spot that matches. Then the player spins a spinner and if there is a match, the player collects the matched card.

But the man in the yellow hat doesn't always give that instruction. Sometimes he says the bus of children are getting closer, and you then move the bus one space towards the zoo entrance.

The real fun, however, lies in a push of the red button and the man's voice saying "Oh, no, George, the animals have escaped!" At that point, all players except the one who pushed the button put on animal masks, run away and hide. The walkie talkie tells the active player when it's time to go look for them, and finds as many as possible before time runs out.

The player with the most task cards and hide and seek cards by the time the bus reaches the zoo is the winner.

Cordy loved playing this game. She loved putting on a mask and hiding from us. Mira loved it too, but she was too young to play along properly and sometimes got in the way. While the game is rated for 4-8, I think some 4 year old might need a little more prompting about the rules throughout the game. (And also walkie talkie supervision - she is notorious for pushing the red button more than once.)

This game is great for working on matching skills, and of course the hide and seek element adds a lot of silly fun to the experience as well. Just be sure to set your boundries for hide and seek at the beginning of the game or you'll be searching out in the garage for the missing panda bear...

Win One!

I've got an extra copy of the Curious George Hide and Seek Zoo board game to give to one lucky reader. To enter, leave a comment below before Friday, April 10 at 11:59 pm EDT. One winner will be selected by random drawing after that date. I can only ship to US addresses. Be sure to leave me a way to contact you in the comments.

Good luck!

Contest is now closed. Congrats to Carolyn!