Training Games: Go Away Monster!
February 22, 2021
by Ambie Valdés
This is part of a series called Training Games, where I review children's games when playing (with modified rules) with my twin toddlers. This review was written when my twins were 17 months old.
Go Away Monster! Is a game where you take turns drawing cardboard shapes out of a bag and placing them into your bedroom. But if you get a monster, you say “go away monster” and put it to the side (or throw it across the room). There’s shape matching in placing the pieces, and older children start learning how to differentiate the shapes by feel.
All of the pieces are cardboard, and I started “playing” this with my babies before 14 months, so my copy has a bunch of bite marks and drool now. I use all the pieces for the modified version, taking turns pulling pieces out from the bag.
My boys love taking pieces out of the bag
I encourage my boys to place the shapes onto the board, but sometimes they just like taking them out of the bag and then putting them back in. This is a tough one to try to keep out of their mouths, so if you want to keep the pieces bite free then you should probably wait until at least 18 months.
Baby B sometimes places the shapes on the board in their spot!
Chew Test
- Player Boards: 3/5 - glossy cardboard and gets bite marks but drool wipes off easily
- Pieces: 2/5 - glossy cardboard (same as player boards), some are small enough to fit all the way in the mouth
- Bag: 4/5 - doesn't get chewed much, but the drawstring fell off
The next game in the series is Tidy Up!
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