Little Mémo, a Memory Game for Toddlers

How perfectly adorable are these little critters from the game Little Mémo!

I wasn’t 100% sure of what to expect when Timberdoodle sent this toddler game, Little Mémo, to review. But I am pleased because it’s adorable and has been so engaging for my youngest son.

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William is 22-months-old, and we just introduced him officially to our homeschool Montessori classroom a couple weeks ago. Because we have lots of materials with tiny pieces meant for the big kids, it’s important that Will always has his own intriguing work to keep his little hands busy.

This game comes with nine animal friends, a sturdy, round cardboard box to hide animals, and 15 circle counters. Instructions state that the memory game is suited for ages 2.5 to age 5. Because Will is still a couple months shy of age 2, we adapted the game following a Montessori format.

Introductory Montessori language games include memory games with small figures — much like this game operates. Instead of introducing all nine figures at once, we started with only three. I did a three period lesson introducing each animal we’d play with by name. Then I hid one under the cup and asked Will, “Where did the frog go?” He’d point to the cup and laugh and uncover it. He thought this was so much fun. From there I’d ask, who is missing? William doesn’t have a lot of words just yet or the speech ability to state frog. But because his language skills are developing at supersonic speeds right now, I know his absorbent mind is on it.

Exposing our toddlers to new words and sounds — especially one on one in a focused and concentrated manner — is possibly the most important language skill builder we can offer at this age.

This activity will definitely grow with him too. Not only can we continue three period lessons swapping out the animals, but we can expand it into true phonics by playing Montessori sound games.

I love this little animal game set from Timberdoodle, and so did Will.

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