Garden Draughts - Review

Enjoying a game of draughts in the Autumn leaves

Even though the weather is turning colder and there's an definite chill in the air there's no excuse not to get outside. Now that its rainier and some of the larger garden toys have gone away I really wanted a toy that could be brought out quickly when the sun shone and put away easily if it started to pour! So it was great timing that I got sent this garden draughts game from Big Game Hunters to review.

Its actually amazing how compact the game is as it can be folded up and put away in the cupboard very easily. It's also very light to carry so it would be a great solution to take away on holiday with you or down to the park or the beach. You could even lay it out indoors on a rainy day. The mat and pieces are all made of plastic so they are easy to clean and can just be rinsed off if they get dirty - which makes them much more practical than the wooden ones you can get.

But of course that's just my opinion. The testers whose views really matter are my children! They loved the idea of a giant garden game and were really excited by it. It was easy for them to get out and set it up and my four year old grasped the idea of how to play the game quickly. What I really liked was that it was simple, but that it also allows the children to use their own creativity as you can invent different games with the pieces. It was also a good way to sneak some maths in to their day by counting how many places you are moving forwards or back, counting how many pieces you have left to get across the board and subtracting any pieces that you have lost. We discovered you can also build towers from the pieces and my daughter invented a game where I had to call out "black" or "white" and her and her brother then had to race to see who could be first to land on a square of the right colour.

We really enjoyed playing the with the garden draughts and I'm sure it will be a regular feature in our garden over the summer months.

Big Game Hunters is a great site and has a range on lovely garden games to choose from, I know I will definitely be making some purchases to keep my children amused in all weathers. The garden draughts set retails at £39.99

Have a look at their website http://www.gardengames.co.uk/
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