Elefun: The Butterfly Catchin' Game by Hasbro - Review

When my 2 year old nephew got Elefun - The Butterfly Catchin' Game for his birthday, I wasn't sure if he'd be into it. The age range for the toy is 3-6 years of age, but Toys R Us recommends it for 4-7 years of age. I had been to a party where an older kid was playing it, so it seemed like a game for older kids. Even though he was two years younger than the recommended age, we set it up to see what he would do.

How to Play
Elefun is a very simple game. Little butterflies (pieces of paper) are put into the base of the toy. Then the elephants trunk is twisted on. When you turn the motor on, a fan blows he butterflies out through the long nose and into the air. Kids will then use one of the 4 included nets to catch the butterflies as they float down to the ground. 2-4 kids can play, and the winner is the kid with the most butterflies. When you only have 1 kid playing, they will enjoy just trying to catch them. Even though they sell this as a multi-player game, my nephew enjoyed it plenty all by himself.

What kids will Learn
This game is great for teaching hand-eye coordination and colors. Kids will learn how to move their hand under the butterflies. Also, since the butterflies are different colors, an extra challenge could be to make the kid only catch one color. Finally, kids can improve their counting skills as they count how many they caught and judge who has the most.

Some issues with the Game
Initially, the butterflies don't always come out. When we saw the older kid playing this, there were times the butterflies floated part way up the trunk but never came out. So when this was given to my nephew, they cut off a little bit of the top of the trunk. Now every butterfly does find it's way out of the trunk and none of them get stuck.

The game is short. The entire game takes less than a minute. Luckily kids like to play it over and over, but at the same time it seems the butterflies come out so fast that the game just ends. This game would be better if the butterflies took longer to come out. As it is now, a big group of them comes out right away, then a few stragglers come out after.

The game takes clean up. Everytime the kids are done with one game, they have to pick up all the butterflies and put them back in the elephant in order to play again. When we watched the older kid playing awhile ago, he did not want to pick up the butterflies... but he did want to play over and over. Luckily my nephew actually enjoyed picking up the butterflies! He made a game of that too as he counted each one he picked up. The point is: don't just give in and keep setting it up for your kids. Get them involved in the clean up/set up or else you'll be on the floor every two minutes.

There really aren't that many butterflies. On his birthday, the person who brought the gift had added pieces of tissue paper which did give my nephew more to catch and made the game last a little longer. After a bunch of games, the tissue paper did start to fall apart more and more though. There are probably other things that could be put in to extend the game time. Anything that floats will do!

Playing with a 2 year old
On the one hand, my nephew had a hard time catching the butterflies and a hard time realizing he had to be right next to the elephant. We grabbed his arm once in awhile to direct him to the butterflies, but even after playing over and over, he still didn't quite have the hand-eye coordination down. Obviously this is something he is still learning! But on the other hand, he still had tons of fun with it regardless of whether or not he knew what to do. He was excited even when he didn't get any! Perhaps starting him out with this game at this age will help him learn his coordination quicker.

Overall
I recommend this game to any parent, as long as you get your child involved in the clean up! You won't want to be on the ground every two minutes for an hour picking up all the butterflies. The truth is, if you don't want to be setting it up every 2 minutes, you'll end up hating the toy because your kids won't get sick of it. Other than that, the game is good for children of all ages, even if the aren't very good at catching yet.