Have you ever played a board game with a 4 year old kid?
It’s horrible.
Chutes and ladders pretty much makes me want to punch myself in the face.
Operation is fun for about 5 minutes and then I want to throw things.
We played Connect Four for a while, but now the game pieces are ALL over our house because Jack decided that they are pieces of pirate’s treasure.
Basically we play games a couple times and then I hide them on top the fridge and pretend I don’t hear him when Jack asks about them.
Because I’m a grown up.
Jack really LOVES board games though. Which is why I ended up buying one when I was wandering through Target around his birthday a couple months ago.
However, this game is actually FUN! And involves learning. Basically, it’s the bifecta of awesome board games for a preschooler.
Image from Amazon.com
It’s called Count Your Chickens (here is a link to it on Amazon), it is recommended for kids aged 3 – 5 and is based on counting. Also, you aren’t playing against each other, but as a team. So, that totally helps with the ‘YOU LOSE AND I WIN’ gloating victory dances.
{What, you don’t do a victory dance when you beat your kid at a game?}
How to play: You spread baby chicks all over the board, because they have ‘flown the coop’ and you need to help get them back. Each player takes a turn spinning the spinner to determine what space they move to. You then count the number of spaces you moved and that is the number of chicks that go back into the coop. If you get a fox, one chick gets taken back out of the coop. The goal is to get all the chicks back in the coop before you reach the end.
It’s an easy game, it helps Jack work on his counting (with some slight addition and subtraction) and it takes less than 10 minutes. I’m going to call that a board game winner!
Have you played Count Your Chickens? Do you have another board game we should try out?
Disclaimer: This isn’t a sponsored post! We just love the game and I wanted to share it with you all. Pocketful of Joules is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
We love board games at our house and play them frequently. My son’s favorites are currently Sorry and Guess Who. Sorry can take a bit longer to play but Guess Who moves pretty quickly. Before he started kindergarten, he also loved a game called Are You Ready for Kindergarten? that can be found at Lakeshore Learning (and maybe other places). It’s a game show format. And even though he’s an only and was just playing against himself, he loved earning $ for getting answers correct. As a teacher, I loved that he was doing academic things the whole time.
Thanks for the recommendation… I’ll have to check Are You Ready for Kindergarten out!
I need another game like this. I also hate the screaming at the end by the loser of the game. 🙂 No fun for me. I did a post about a game called Richard Scarry’s Busytown that sounds similar where you work as a team so it is great that everyone is a winner. Thanks for this idea.
Ooooh, I’ll have to check that one out too! Thank you!
Awww! This looks like so much fun!! I bet my nieces and nephews would love it!
Hi Joules! I have older boys (11 and 14 now), but we have always loved to play games. Some of our favorites at Jack’s age were Zingo (kid version of Bingo), Hullabaloo (not a board game, but a fun updated version of twister) and The Lady Bug game (a little similar to the game you mentioned above as far as counting, but you do play on your own). One on my LEAST FAVORITE was Hungry Hungry Hippo. SO loud and all those annoying marbles to keep up with. Good luck!
Ha, thank you so much for posting about this! I have a hard time finding games that I enjoy to play with the kids, this looks perfect!
LOL! Playing with kids does make me want to punch myself in the face sometimes. I’ve never played Count Your Chickens though.
really fun ideas! we are going to try this!
This looks so cute and fun!
I don’t have any kids, but I love playing board games! The game “Sorry” is another good game for young kids to play.
xx,
Amanda || http://www.fortheloveofglitter.com
Joules, that sounds like a pretty good game! I don’t have kids yet (less than 11 weeks to go til our first arrives!) but I have lots of kids that I buy for and I really don’t enjoy buying things that aren’t useful, so this game would be perfect. I’ll have to see if it’s stocked in Australia though because shipping is always a killer!