With over 250 awards for product excellence, Briarpatch aims to capture and challenge your child’s growing mind. The game, “Clothespins” focuses on teaching children how to match using various criteria, from types of clothes to patterns.

To play the game, a player must collect at least three matching laundry cards. They may be matched by style (example: all three laundry cards are boxer shorts) or by pattern (example: all stripes or all polka dots). Cards may be snatched away from your opponent by using a Bird card and in order to finish the game, the final card of each line must be the finishing pole.

For ages 5+ and 2 – 4 players

Pros:

•    Educational – teaches how to match using unspecified criteria (the child has to pick what goes together and why)

•    Game play is moderately paced

•    Quality cardstock and board pieces

•    No reading involved

•    Made in the USA

Cons:

•    Until the game is played several times, the rules can be difficult to master for some children

In the end, this game will rely completely on how the child reacts to the challenge put before them – they will both really take to the game and love it or they will become frustrated and the game will cease to be fun. If you do purchase the game, I would recommend playing with your child a few times, and if the understanding just is not there yet, put it away and wait for awhile. A simpler game for older children, a young one may find difficulty in place of entertainment.

Toys and social consciousness rarely work together: the toy is either inherently anti-environmental (use of synthetic fibers, for example) or they are so outrageously costly that they seem to be more of an investment than a toy. Not so with Xeko Pals.

Based on characters from the Xeko Trading Card game, Giant Panda, Sumatran Flying Squirrel, and Hairy Eared Dwarf Lemur are the three plush toys available as the Xeko Pals. The cute animals are tied in with the Xeko game website as well. Matter Group, the makers of Xeko Pals donate 4% of sales to Conservation International.

Created with soy fabric and stuffed with soy filling, Xeko pals are soft to squeeze and hold. Each pal comes complete with a tag that’s filled with fact, a mission statement to the Xeko Agent (for the game website), and a Mission Code which can be used on the Xeko Game website in order to unlock a secret game or item.

    

Pros

•    Amazingly soft and squeezable

•    Raises Earth and Endangered Animal awareness

Cons

•    Advises for use by 4 year olds or older only

Neutral

•    Made in China – but considering the use of soy, this is not too surprising

•    Amount donated to Conservation International

In the end, raising awareness for animal causes is great and very important, but buy the product to raise awareness within your own home, not the amount of money that goes to Conservation International. The math roughly comes to 80¢ per Giant Panda bought. That is something, but it does not tip the scales heavily in one direction.