Maurice Sendak's Little Bear Make-a-Match Game

Ages 3 and up. Each player is given a mat with 9 pictures on it, which are labeled. The players take turns taking cards, either from the top of the draw pile, or the last one discarded. If a player gets a card that matches one of the nine pictures on his mat, he places the card on top of that picture on his mat. If he gets a card that he does not need, he discards it. The first player to cover all 9 pictures on his mat wins. Alternately, the game can be played by matching the background color of the card chosen to the background colors on the mat, rather than matching the picture. For older children, there are also mats with letters of the alphabet on them. To use these, the players match the picture on the card drawn with the first letter in its label.