I saw it first!

We just bought this amazing new family game called "I saw it first!" (Jungle edition) and we had to share how brilliant it is!

The idea:

You assemble the board into a big old hexagon and push out all the cute little tiles that have pictures of animals on one side and their names on the back. You then take turns to pick a tile out of the bag and place it in the centre of the board. Then it's a race to spot the same animal somewhere in the chaotic mileu of animals on the board itself. Whoever spots it first says, you guessed it... "I saw it first!" and wins the tile. It's then their go to choose a tile out of the bag. You keep going until all the tiles are gone, you get bored, or as with all family board games, someone gets frustrated and flips the board over...

What it teaches

• Attention to detail
• Focusing on a specific task
• Learning the names of animals in a fun environment
• Spatial awareness
• Gracious winning and losing (sometimes)

We first encountered this game at a friend's birthday party and we fell in love with it immediately, not only for its family fun value, but because we (the adults) totally nerded out and wanted to learn the names of as many of the animals as possible.

What I learned from playing this game and others like it is that my rather neurotic desire to follow the rules of the game properly is often not mirrored quite so enthusiastically by my child, and the best way to maximise enjoyment as a family is for me to let go of this desire and just let the game flow how they decide.

It took a lot of effort and time but I do now genuinely enjoy playing the game 'wrong' with them, because I get to see into their imagination as they take us off on wild adventures with ideas that I would never have even considered

Embrace the madness!