Kids Games: Würfel-Zwerge

This charming little kids game, Dwarves and Dice, is quite popular with my four year old, so, I thought I could share it here... and hopefully get fellow moms to let me know about other simple kids games that is a hit with their little ones. Also known as Le jeu des nains (French) or Würfel-Zwerge (German) the game is made by Selecta^™.

It is a very simple game: 56 little wooden cards have pictures of dwarves wearing pants, shirt and hat of various colors. Three dice are rolled at once. The resultant color combination starts the race to find the one single card among the 56 in which the dwarf's pants, shirt and hat matches the colors from the dice roll. Whoever finds the matching card first gets to keep that card. And the next player takes turn to roll the dice and so on. The game has a few variations for older kids, but in the simplest version the game ends when the dice-roll results in a color combination already played (and therefore the card is not on the table anymore).

I fell in love with this game right away and haven't turned down an invitation from Ana to play so far. Ana is pretty quick if she is into the game, so, initially I take it slow and let her 'win' a few cards so she doesn't get frustrated...

This is not really a memory game, just needs sharp observation and quick processing.

The pictures of the dwarves on the cards are terribly cute with interesting facial expressions and poses. The first few times we played when Ana was three, she would just stare at the pictures and study them, not really getting the hang of the game. The colors are vibrant and eye-catching.

If there is one thing I would change about it, it is the same issue I had with Candyland: the red and pink tend to blend together in indoor light; I would make the red a little deeper and leave the pink closer to pale baby-ish pink. Invariably D confuses the pink and the red, and Ana and I have to help him relearn his colors :)

Memory Cards

[posted by Sheela at The Joy of My Life. Many thanks to Sandeepa for reminding me to post it at our DMC! ]


Concentration or Memory is a simple game that helps improve memory in children (and adults). There are several versions of this game. Some involve objects, but this here is for little Ana, with home-made cards.

The cards are laid out face down. Each player takes a turn and flips 2 cards at random. If the cards match, they get to keep the pair. If they don't, they put it back exactly where they flipped them. The memory part is that, they should try to remember which position had which card, so, that as the game progresses, the matching act becomes less of a random guess and more of a test of memory.

For Ana, who is 2 years old, the maximum number of cards I use at a time is 12 - which involve 6 pairs, with each pair having a particular picture she easily recognizes and can match without any shred of doubt.

These are home-made cards, so, when I detect some wear, I make new ones. They are not as sturdy as the store-bought laminated cards, and the pictures are not as pretty and colorful. But, it serves the purpose :-)



Supplies I used: card stock paper, paper cutter, rubber stamps, rubber stamp ink pad, some construction paper and dye-cut punch, pinking shears, glue stick.



We don't use color cartridges in our printer, so, I didn't try to design graphics on my computer and print them out. At some point, I would like to print out just the black&white outline and color them, rather than using rubber stamps.

But, the reason I chose to use rubber stamps is so that I can make the cards with Ana. She likes to help me make things, even if she has no clue what I am making. "Let's make some memory cards, Ana" is all I had to say the first time, and when she saw me gather my supplies and settle down, she faithfully sat next to me, observing for a while, then asking to try and glue the flowers at the back and so on... Of course, I always go back and "adjust" it so it looks more uniform.

She is fascinated by the pinking shears and knows it as "Amma's soosuss" (scissors) and has her own plastic scissors with which she tries to clip her hair, her toys and such, of course, without success as it is just toy scissors.

And, while I try to rubber stamp her memory cards as uniformly as I can, she has a blast stamping on her "art" notebook. Her preferred ink color is the turquoise blue, for some reason!

Anyway, as she gets older, I hope to have fun having her design her own cards, and more of them - I can't wait to play with about 50 cards all laid out and trying to match them from memory with Ana...

D and I play with Ana. We don't really insist on turns, as sometimes Ana is so carried away with flipping that she does manage to get all the pairs. This can be played like Solitaire, so, if we can encourage her to get into this game, we could let her play on her own down the road and enjoy the "free time" we get meanwhile ;-)