TalkMats | Start a Conversation with your Kids at Dinner {Review and Giveaway}
Our family eats dinner together every night. It’s what we do. And, we try to all discuss our days.
Some days..let’s be honest, our 3 and 5 year old already have a hard time discussing their day. They say they forgot, don’t want to talk about it, or just sit there quietly.
Enter TalkMats.
TalkMats are placemats that help families have quality conversation during meal time. They feature questions, conversation starters and games that can be played with the entire family. Each TalkMat in the set is different. So my #1 question is different than everybody else’s. This makes it fun and results in everyone asking and answering questions instead of the parents asking all of the questions.
TalkMats have been designed so that the average dinner plate can sit in the center with the questions and games visible. TalkMats are 18 inches wide and 12 inches high. The are made of a child safe laminate that can be wiped off with a damp cloth and used over and over again. And, they are made in America!
While the primary audience is at least 4 years old and reading, I’ve found that is still offers a lot for our three year old. She will start finding numbers and counting them sequentially as well and locating letters. She also wants to know what the kids are doing in the pictures and will often start a story about that.
It really has generated a lot of conversation..meaningful conversation at our table, and it’s nice that we can all be involved. They have been on our table every night since we started using them.
You can check out the full version on their site and see all of the questions, and listed below are some of the samples.
Sample Questions:
- What can you learn on the playground?
- What is the idea allowance and why?
- Does it matter how you win?
- What makes a good friend?
- What does it mean to be a leader?
- What superpower would you like to have?
- Everyone names a playground game until someone can’t name one.
- Give clues to a movie until someone guesses the movie.
- Pick a playground game and everyone must add a silly rule.
The PlayGround Set with 4 TalkMats and over 60 questions is $19.99.
The PlayGround Set with 6 TalkMats and over 100 questions is $24.99.
Use discount code “serious” and get 30% off a set of TalkMats.
These look a lot more fun than the periodic chart of the elements placemats Aunt Deb got for you and Emily. Of course when it came time to study them and memorize them for school you both got A’s. Could be why you got your Masters degree in Chemistry. I am also a firm believer in families eating dinner together every evening and these placemats look like they could start some fun conversations. Starting the kids off at a young age conversing about their days keeps them conversing when they are older too. Starting good communicatioin skills young will help them through every aspect of their lives when they get older.
These are so neat! We try to eat together every night, too…I am glad mom had us do that when we were young so we do it as adults. No tv, no phones, no computers are the best dinners! They should make these for adults—let’s face it, after you’ve been up and at ’em since 4am, you need some help thinking of what to discuss besides your work day!