Enjoy this beautiful day

It seems that most board games on the market today are about competition. As a result, there is inevitably and winner and a loser. If you have a house with children (or grown-ups) who have not yet learned to lose gracefully, what you thought would be a fun afternoon, quickly turns into bickering and brooding.

While I adore many of the games built around this premise, I was delighted when my sister recommended The Orchard, a game by the German company Haba. (Haba has long been a favorite of mine for their toys.) The premise of the game is that all the players work together to gather all the fruit from the orchard before a puzzle of a raven is complete. When the puzzle of the raven is complete, it eats the fruit in the orchard! Suddenly I found even the two-year-old cheering on her siblings, working together toward a common goal.

And, um, it doesn’t hurt that the game includes these lovely, wooden pieces and real baskets which can easily be repurposed for other imaginary play! Haba has many other fantastic games, many of which include a cooperative slant.