bamboo, who knew?

I had the opportunity to review the Bamboo Collection Rapelli Game from Discovery Channel Store courtesy of ParentBloggers recently. I'd originally jumped at the chance to review this game because it's made of all natural eco-friendly materials (100% bamboo) and I was happy to see the wooden pieces and dice and the bamboo stand.
The Rapelli game is cute, a bamboo "tree" with holes in it that you fill with little colored wooden caterpillars which are then pulled out of the holes depending on the roll of the dice. The game says it's for kids ages 4 and up and M is only 3.5, so some of the concepts were a bit hard for her to understand which was our issue and not the product, but as an adult I felt the directions could have been clearer too. A couple of things were confusing: 1. how many times could each player roll the dice on his/her turn and 2. the symbols on the dice.

I think the first point could have been easily resolved with a bit more clarity in the directions and the second point was more conceptual, perhaps there would have been a different way to direct the caterpillars back and forth in the holes than needing to decipher multiple arrows going in two different directions. It wasn't a big deal but I do think M would need to be quite a bit older before she could understand the dice by herself.


Overall the concept was terrific and it was a fun game for the three of us to play together. All I suggest is that the directions could use some fine tuning in order to make the game a bit clearer to the adults so the adults can more clearly explain the game before the little people get too impatient and start throwing the little caterpillars around the room.