Count Your Chickens

Count Your Chickens - Kids work together toward a common goal.

Count Your Chickens is a simple, straight-forward, farm-themed cooperative game. The baby chicks have flown the coop. Mama hen needs help collecting them all and bringing them back to the chicken coop. Players will take separate turns, but work together to return the chicks to the coop before mother hen gets to the end of the path.

The game board has 40 spaces between start and the chicken coop at the top of the board. The spinner is made of very sturdy cardboard and the arrow moves freely. The pictures on the spinner are pig, dog, sheep, tractor, cow and fox. The small chick tokens are fairly small circles with a picture of a chick on them. They measure 3/4" in diameter. They are thin and may be difficult to pick up for some. In that case, maybe you could allow the person to put their finger on the piece and push it to the coop. All pieces are shown in the image below.

Something I like about this game is that the rules are printed on the inside of the box cover. They will be hard to misplace!

Object: 

Get all the chicks into the chicken coop before mother hen reaches the coop.

Set up:

Place the board between the players. Scatter the baby chicks around the board but not on the path. Place mother hen on start. Place the spinner nearby.

Play:

Taking turns, each player will spin the spinner and move mother hen to the next space that matches the picture where the arrow landed on the spinner. Count the number of spaces as you move and then pick up that many chicks (off the board) and place them in the chicken coop. There are a few blue spaces on the board that picture an animal PLUS a baby chick. If you land on one of those spaces, collect an extra chick and place it in the coop with the others. If you spin the fox, you do not get to move mother hen plus you must take one chick out of the coop and put it back on the board.The game ends when the mother chicken reaches the coop or all the chick tokens end up in the chicken coop, whichever comes first. If the chicks all end up in the coop first, you and your team have won the game. If mother hen gets to the coo but there are some chicks that have not made it into the coop yet, you have lost.

Try this:

• Work on cooperation, visual discrimination, manual dexterity, coordinated use of both hands, finger isolation, flicking a spinner, counting spaces and advancing around a game board, socialization skills, process skills, executive functioning skills, play and leisure exploration and participation 
• Squirrel the chicks into your palm as you pick them up off the board.
• Push the chicks out of your hand, bringing them to the fingertips one at a time, before dropping them into the coop.
• Look for a nice rounded web space as you prepare to flick the arrow on the spinner.
• Use different fingers to flick the spinner.
• Hold the spinner in one hand and flick with the other, instead of leaving it on the table top.
• Allow the person who needs practice with the spinner to spin for everyone.
• Sing Old MacDonald at the end of the game to celebrate your win. With a cluck cluck here and a peep peep there...

In the box: Game board, spinner, mother hen with stand, 40 baby chicks

If you are interested in purchasing this item or just want more information, click on the image below.