Intro/First Impressions

Count your Chickens is one of our families favorite games! We love working cooperatively to help the Mama hen, and we also love the learning involved. It is a great way to spend time together and also work on counting, turn taking, social skills and more.

This is a great way to get your kids started on board games or if they are already gamers it's a great addition to any collection. The box states it is for ages 3+ but since it is cooperative, we think it can be suitable for younger kids as well.

Thoughts

One of the main targets of Count Your Chickens is counting. On their turn players spin the spinner and move the Mama Hen. The spinner has images of a pig, puppy, pig etc on it. As you move the Hen to the next square with the picture you spin, you count how many spaces she is moving and that is the number of chicks you get to place back in the coop.

There are 5 squares on the board that are blue and have a picture of a baby chick in addition to the image. If you land on one of these squares you get to place one additional chick back in the coop! Beware the fox on the spinner though. If you spin the fox he helps one chick sneak back out and you have to take one chick from the coop and place him back in the field!

If you don't get all the chicks back in the coop by the time the Mama Hen reaches the last square you lose. There are 40 squares and 40 baby chicks, in our experience we won the majority of games we played.

For this reason we are glad we started playing Count Your Chickens when the kids were younger. We feel that we got a lot of play out of the game before they started to outgrow the difficulty level (we now enjoying playing games like Hoot Owl Hoot that are still cooperative but more challenging). They are at the age where they prefer a challenge over winning all the time and even though it does have the fox element we aren’t able to up the difficulty.

The cooperative aspect is fantastic for teaching and skill building. It allows kids to become more confident with their gaming abilities since they are being guided through game play while also working on turn taking sportsmanship. Some kids have trouble with losing a game but when you win and lose as a team it helps kids to see how to win and lose gracefully.

There are no strategy elements for the game which is why we highly recommend it as an introductory game. It works on a wide variety of skills which is exciting and entertaining without being overwhelming or too complicated. It also begins the process of figuring out how to work towards an end goal in a straightforward manner.

One of our favorite reasons to play Count Your Chickens is for the fine motor skill practice. The chickens are quite small (and easy to lose, but don't worry, Peaceable Kingdom offers free replacement pieces) and require kids to use their small muscle groups in order to pick them up and move them. The kids love making the sounds of the animals as they complete the actions during play.

The use of a spinner is an element that your child may be experience for the first time. This is another fine motor skill to practice that will evolve over time. In the beginning they may just push or swat at the spinner but over time those muscles will develop and be able to spin or flick the spinner.

The attention span of toddlers is low and Count Your Chickens understands that. The games are quick so you have the opportunity to play one quick game for a small period of structured play or a couple games if it suits your toddler. We appreciate that the games are short enough that the kids are able to complete it.

Conclusion

I would highly recommend Count Your Chickens for new and young gamers. It made our best board games for 3 year olds list for its fun, colorful, and educational nature. It is low on the cost spectrum and the quality is great. Peaceable Kingdom stand behind all of their games making this an easy choice for the kids on your list.