Review: Birdcage Press Go Fish Cards Impressionist Art

We were SO COMPLETELY EXCITED to receive a free set of Go Fish For Impressionist Artists cards from Birdcage Press, for our review this month!

Designed for kids (and adults) ages 7 and up, this fun and easy card game and book was an absolute delight to review. We had recently visited a couple of great art museums, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City and the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, for the special Becoming Van Gogh exhibit. It was easy to see that the kids really loved and appreciated the impressionist art pieces best. I'm sure my bias towards these had no sway on theirs. ;) Knowing this, I jumped on the opportunity to review these wonderful cards. We sat down and played with them the entire weekend after they arrived.

One of my goals for visiting art museums is to help my kids to have a real appreciation for art, develop a taste, and to familiarize them with artists' names and names of specific art pieces. If you've ever visited one of these museums you know how overwhelming the experience is. As we walked away we knew of a few we liked, but were on information overload! This is why these cards were created:

I first began creating games as a way to make learning more fun for my three young children. We made them up together, pairing favorite card games with different periods of art and history. I wrote a book to go with each game and my children acted as my editors. They made sure every fact in each book was interesting and easy to understand for readers of all ages. -Wenda O'Reilly, Ph.D. 

So after a full weekend of play, I was sure the kids would be tired of the cards. But instead they asked to play with them again and again. It's a new family favorite.

The included book gives a few facts and details about each artist, and the kids have now learned how to pronounce the names of the 8 impressionist artists featured:

1. Edouard Manet
2. Camille Pissarro
3. Edgar Degas
4. Berthe Morisot
5. Claude Monet
6. Auguste Renoir
7. Mary Cassatt
8. Gustave Caillebotte

The main way to use the cards is to play Go Fish, trying to collect each of the four featured paintings of each artist. The only hard part was shuffling the cards. We found that they were too large and thick to shuffle the traditional way. It was much easier to just scramble up a pile of them on the table to shuffle. They are very nice and durable cards!

We have also used the cards as flashcards, covering the bottom half, and they have learned to name each artwork featured.  Emma sat down just today and named 35 out of the 36 cards without looking at titles. I think this is fantastic, and I look forward to collecting all of the art cards.

Bottom Line:
This is a quality product, and fun for all ages. At $11.95, this is well within our gift budget and might make the list for cousins for Christmas. *don't tell them!* I would recommend these cards as a fun way to supplement any art appreciation curriculum.

I would be remiss to note, as with all art, some discretion may be advised. When some friends come over there is 1 Degas card we remove from the deck. Not on the level of "David" nudity, but may not be for all palates.

To read other reviews of several different Birdcage Press products, visit the crew blog!


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