Review: Fundels Card Games

Monday 30 January 2017

Since M started school in September her reading and writing has really improved. Part way through the first term she suddenly started showing a big interest in both and she can often be found in her room practicing writing words or sounding them out. When we were given the chance to review a couple of the new Fundels educational card games from Cartamundi I was excited to see what M would think of them.

As soon as I showed the two games to M she wanted to open them and play, always a good sign about the appeal of the game, but less helpful when I am trying to take photographs for the blog! We were sent the Writing Letters game and Learning English card pack and she has enjoyed playing both games, although she has a tendency to make up her own rules.

A 5 year old girl in school uniform looking at cards with a picture and the word underneath eg a picture of a baby and then "BABY" written underneath

Writing Letters

The Writing Letters Pack, based on the Key Stage 1 curriculum, is a game for 2 to 4 players and 5 years plus (although I think it’s suitable for anyone who has started Reception year at school). The purpose of the game is to “fill in as many cards as possible by writing the letters on their shadow”.

The pack contains 42 writing cards each with a word between 3 and 6 letters long and a picture to illustrate what it is, 38 smaller letter cards and an erasable marker pen. They all come in a hard plastic portable case so it is easy to keep all the pieces together and store.

To play, the letter cards are placed in the middle and each person takes a writing card. The person who goes first takes a letter card (which have 4 letters on) and if any of the letters are needed for their word they copy them down. If any letters are left over the other players can use them. You can vary the length of the game by how many cards the winner needs to complete, this is helpful to adjust to the child’s attention span.

The ‘shadow’ letters on the writing cards have arrows on to ensure the letters are written correctly, this is something M still struggles with so it’s very helpful. This game just uses capital letters in clear print so it might be confusing if your child is currently focusing on little letters and cursive writing, we didn’t experience any problems though.

The Writing Letters game is a great way to get children to practise their writing while playing a game and having fun.

The green case of the writing letters game next to cards saying Garden and Bed, a dry wipe pen and a letters card with the letters E, I, N and Y

Learn English

The Learn English pack is the size of a deck of playing cards. The 55 cards each have a word on one side and a picture of the item on the other side. The cards are coloured to separate the words into categories (or families) e.g. food or clothes. The instructions suggest 3 different games you can play with the pack, but the cards lend themselves well to a large number of games depending on the literacy level of the child.

The suggested games are: a quiz, a memory game and Imagination (making a sentence or story using the words), but some other ideas we have had are:

Flash cards: the words range from “Cat” to “toothbrush” so can be used with children who are learning to read to teach them new words or with younger children picture side up to teach them the names of items.

Odd one out: for younger children place a selection of cards picture side up and ask them to choose the odd one out and explain why (the colour of the cards will help them, so the explanation is important).

Snap: there are a number of ways you could play snap e.g. same colour cards or words starting with the same letter depending on the age of the players.

Charades: pick a card at random from the pack and help the other players guess what it is without using words or showing them the card.

I think the Learn English cards are really versatile in a pack which is small enough to take out with you anywhere and can provide hours of entertainment.

The packaging of the Learn English game with all the playing cards spread out next to it and a small hand reaching in from the edge of the screen

If you like the sound of these games they are available to buy from Tesco (from end of January), WHSmith (from February) and John Lewis (from end of February) or you can win them both in my latest giveaway below. There are other games in the range which focus on numbers and shapes.

Thank you to Cartamundi for sending the games to us for review and for providing a Writing Letters game and Learn English deck for my giveaway. Entry is via Rafflecopter below and all normal terms and conditions apply (available in full in the rafflecopter widget). Giveaway closes Sunday 12th February and entry is for UK residents only.

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