Review & Giveaway: Calico Critters Card Game, "Who's Missing"

Giveaway now closed, thank you to everyone who entered and congratulations to Kiy, comment #33, who said, "Our favorite fun activity is the coloring pages. Right now, coloring is ALL the rage in our household!"
ER and I have been enjoying daily game time with our new Who's Missing card game from Calico Critters. Featuring the adorable friends from their popular line of play sets, the games are both fun and educational and the cards are the perfect size for little hands.
We've been playing two out of the three suggested games. The first one improves your memory skills and was a totally new concept for ER. That makes it really fun for her. I lay out 5 cards in a row. She looks at all the cards and tries to memorize what's on them.Then ER covers her eyes while I take away a card; I have to watch her like a hawk for peeking☺. She has to tell me which Calico Critters are missing. As the game is played, the row of cards grows, so the game becomes more challenging the longer you play. I think that's a great way to keep older kids challenged and engaged. Right now we only go up to seven cards because after that she becomes frustrated.
The next game is a great one to work on number recognition and counting. She wants to play so badly, because she just loves the Calico Critter families on the cards, that it's gotten her to really start looking at the numbers on them more and more. Which is great to me. I also like how all the cards with two animals on it all have a pink background. It's nice to give kids more than one type of visual cue, they can figure out which cards got together by color and numeral.
To play this game each player gets five cards. To modify and make it a fun and successful activity for ER we play with our cards face up. The rest are placed in the middle and the top one is turned over. Players take turns looking at their cards and either matching up the same Critter family or number. The first player to use up all their cards wins. The last game, Calico Critter Rummy has players collect seven cards with the same number on them. It involves preplanning and strategy that ER isn't ready for. It's nice to know this is one game that can continue to grow with her. We can also continue to make the other games a little harder and challenge her. I know we'll be playing with this set for years to come.
Giveaway!
Would you like to win a set?

International Playthings, the makers of Calico Critters is giving away one to my readers!

I know you'll have so much fun playing, that your kiddos won't even notice they are learning and improving critical life skills.

To Enter:
Head over to the Calico Critter's website and tell me your favorite product there.

Extra Entries:

• Publically follow my blog using Google Friends Connect.
• Post my link button.
• Fan me on Facebook.
• Follow me on Twitter. Tweet about this giveaway, link to this post, and include @KTnestingspot in it.
• Tell me which fun activity on the Calico Critter's website your kids would like the most.
• Tell me your favorite Calico Critters Family.

Good Luck! Giveaway open now through April 2nd at midnight EST. Winner has 48 hours to respond to my email before a new one is chosen. Open to US residents only.



Disclaimer: Thank you to International Playthings for sponsoring this giveaway and providing the reviewers set of the game. This review relates my own personal and unbiased opinions and experince with it and yours may differ.