Customer Reviews

Noodleboro Fun Park Sharing Game

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Though the idea of teaching kids to share through a fun game is a great one, this game just doesn't get it quite right. The CD and story book were fun for my kids to listen to but the game itself poses very little challenge. The children just kind of "go through the motions" completing the extremely simple carnival games. There are also tons of tiny pieces required to play the game, bound to get lost at some point.

I have a 4 year old and a 6 year old and sharing is sometimes a challenge at my house. I bought this game last week and all I can say is WOW! The game is really fun -- play the "carnival" games and win prizes. Then share the prizes with each other to earn Sharing Stars. My girls are actually sharing with each other! What a great concept to use a game to teach sharing. My only complaint is that the cd can be a little annoying after a while, but my girls seem to love it. I am planning to get the Listening one for Christmas.

My daughter got this for her 5th birhtday. She has no siblings so we have to play with her. She loves this game, and we have a good time playing too. Its hard to find a game that fits lots of differnet ability groups and this one does!

I like the idea of the Noodleboro series. Anything life lesson that can be broken down into game form is helpful to small kids who often can't put issues like social skills into terms they can understand. With a 4-year-old that has two younger brothers, pushing the concept of "sharing" had me interested in this game, and its price was inviting enough to give it a try.

The concept puts you at a carnival/theme park where there are four games (which are based on rides for some reason - I guess to not encourage kids to want to play carnival midway games) you can play, with each game having a prize attached to it. However, you can only win a prize once, so if you play the game (and win) a second time, you give your prize to a fellow player, and a "sharing star" is placed on the board. Play continues until the "park closes" (one side of the playing die makes time progress) then the sharing stars are counted.

The message isn't bad - things like this can be preachy, and the game doesn't beat you over the head with sharing. You're still looking out for #1 when you start the game, trying to win prizes. However there is no incentive for "sharing" those prizes after winning the first one; the player is forced to give the prize to another player, and the reward is a community reward. While the ideal world says that people are charitable solely from the good of their heart, almost all charity is done with some kind of incentive given to the donor, whether it be a free tote bag, tax writeoff, or even the positive feeling one gets by helping. No trade-offs, no individual recognition - just figure out which player hasn't won that game yet and give them the prize, and if everyone already has the prize, just dump it in the middle of the board (you're sharing your prize with the Noodleboro Gang) and put a star on the board. Do too much sharing so that the players have more than 6 sharing stars on the board? Just put the stars off to the side and keep track of them. Yay. When the game ends, count up the stars and try to do better next time!

[I'm serious - there is no "winning" in the game or even a goal to achieve. The instructions tell you to add up the stars and try to beat that score the next time you play. Everybody wins, or nobody wins, depending on your half-glass view.]

The main issue though, goofy messages and scoring aside, is that the games aren't fun to play. There are four games:

- Ferris Wheel: Wheel has three colors. Pick color, spin wheel. Get it right, prize. Get it wrong, no prize.
- Tents: Basically 3-Card-Monte. Tents look the same on the outside, different pictures on the inside. Pick one, have another player mix them up, and try to find the one you picked.
- Roller Coaster: Catch the Plinko chip. A small (I'd say the size of a penny) chip is put into the top of a clear plastic device, and the player has a stick with a round surface at the end the size of a quarter. Drop the chip, and try to catch it.
- Log Flume: Balance a small ball on a forked stick while moving it through a twisting piece of plastic.

I know I'm not 3 years old, but the Ferris Wheel and Tents are throwaway "games" that are based on dumb luck (which would be why they're used in gambling). The Roller Coaster would probably be fun if the Plinko board (I have no better word for it) was more than 8 inches tall. You're just sticking the stick under and hoping it lands. Only the log flume game involves anything bordering on "skill", and my four-year-old can do it, so it's not like I'm talking complex skill.

Your mileage may vary. My son loved playing the game the other day and was talking about "sharing stars" even after we were done playing, so maybe I'm expecting too much out of the game. But at the same time, I don't know how likely it will be that he'll pick the game again if given the option to pick from several. He's already passed it up twice since that initial game. Given the opportunity I would not buy this again, even at the bargain price.

We bought this game and the others in the noodleboro line because our daughter has aspergers syndrome and we felt she could use help in learning social skills. This game is fantastic, it is helping her and she LOVES to play it(so does her 6yr old sister). I would recommend this game for anyone who has a preschooler.

this game really does teach sharing. my 3 yr old (only child) really needed this game. it's helped him a lot. he loves to try to play the little carnival games and then share the tokens. it's cute. not super durable. there's a lot of pieces so it can be a challenge to not lose any of them if your kids like to dig in the games. i'd suggest buy it, but keep the game up high where the pieces won't get lost. ;o)

This game is awesome for teaching social skills of sharing, working together, frustration (some of the game pieces are a little hard for some kids), etc.

This is my son's second Noodlebro game. The game itself is nice and sturdy for little hands. My son has the picnic game already and loved the CD and book so much that when I found this game for really cheap I had to pick it up. The game itself isn't very interesting to my son. But it could just be his personality. Right now he likes playing with the different parts of the carnival by himself. (He still trying to learn how to play board games because when he rolls something he doesn't like, he would rather just skip his turn that do the carnival game the die says.)

I don't see this game as very fun or holding his attention very long, and wouldn't buy it unless it were on super clearance. The 3 stars reflects the cd/book or else it'd probably be 1 star for us.

I gave this to my 4 year old niece who also has a twin brother she could share with. My 4 and 7 year old sat with them to try out this game and though they enjoyed the little carnival games, results were a little disappointing.

PLAYING THE GAME

There is a moon/star tracker dial with a marker and four carnival games. The player rolls the die and on only one face of the die is the instruction for moving the marker around the moon/star tracker. The game is over when the tracker moves all the way around the moon/star tracker and the park closes. I'm not sure if the marker should start at the moon or the star. Instructions don't say, so we arbitrarily start on the stars. I think it should more logically be a sun tracker with the game ending at sundown. Oh well. Let me tell you, it takes a looooong time to get that marker around the tracker. In fact, we ended the game when the tracker had only moved three spaces. There were nine more spaces to go!

There are four carnival games which are relatively easy for the 4 year olds. They get it about 75% of the time. When they win a carnival game, they get a prize which they must share with someone who doesn't have that prize. Then, they get a star which they throw into the middle of the moon/star tracker. The object of the game is to get as many stars in the pot as they can before the park closes. By the time we got to the third star, we ran out of stars to throw into the pot.

LEARNING TO SHARE

The big questions here are do the children enjoy the game and do they learn to share. To the first question, the answer is yes. All the children enjoyed the carnival games. When we ran out of stars, my son suggested taking the stars out and continue the game from there.

To the second question, my answer is no. The kids were supposed to share the prize they receive with someone who did not have that prize. With four kids, it was somewhat of a popularity contest. Then there were the kids who hid their prizes and declared they did not have that prize, "choose me!" The stars they received as a reward for sharing didn't have much meaning as they had to toss it into the pot, and trying to get as many stars in the pot as possible didn't really feel like much of a goal.

BOOK AND CD

There is a book and CD of sharing songs to go along with the game. The book tells a story of some kids going to the carnival and how they share. None of our kids wanted to read the book. I didn't find the book that exciting, and it didn't go all that well with the game. In the book, the kids all start out with star tokens to spend on the games and in the end, one child wins all the prizes and shares it with his friends. I think maybe the book should follow the game a little better or vice versa.

SUMMARY

The carnival games are fun for the preschooler crowd. The game itself is very long and drawn out and just doesn't effectively teach sharing.

My husband and I were very disappointed with this game. Our daughter received this for her 4th birthday. It is very plain and simple, no challenge to it. This game is about sharing and there are no losers. Let's face it: kids need to learn to be good losers in addition to sharing. Balloon Lagoon would be a better choice. Other good educational games for this age are Sum Swamp and Alphabug Soup Word Game by Learning Resources.