Peaceable Kingdom Hoot Owl Hoot - Cooperative Matching Game For Kids

I’ve bought more than one of the Hoot Owl Hoot games as well as a few of the other Peaceable Kingdom games. I bought the first one for one set of grandkids and just bought this one for our other daughter’s son who just turned 3. This one is listed as 4+year olds, but it can be actually be used with kids a little younger since you can modify the game play by using fewer baby owls that need to get to the nest before the sun comes up. The cooperative nature of the game means that you are helping your child (or grandchild) rather than competing with him/her, while also teaching colors, rules, counting and one-to-one correspondence, directionality, etc. You’re also helping them learn that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but you’re doing it together against the game. It also teaches strategy and as kids get older they learn how to select which color card and which owl is more advantageous to move. Great concepts, adorable characters and story, and fun!

Bought and played this with my grandsons ages 3 and 4 and it was fun. The three year old was probably a little too young to grasp the concept but he still played it and had fun doing it "his" way, lol. Perfect for the four year old. Such a cute, fun, easy game that wont take too long.

The parents of my grand children really loved that I bought this game. The grandkids liked the game too! Double win.

My 3 and 5 year olds love this game! I like that it's cooperative, and made of paper materials rather than plastic.

Fun and easy and the littles understand the story and want to play again

This is an excellent board game for young children to practice color recognition and beginning team strategy. My children at 4 and 7 enjoyed playing this game and requested it quite often during board game sessions with me. They're now 5 and 8 and they still request it from time to time. I as the adult also enjoy playing it with them. In the game players work together to move from 4 to 6 owls (depending on the desired difficulty) down the colored track to their nest before the sun comes up. Owl tokens are placed on the start places of the track. Players then draw hands of three cards. Every turn they play a card and draw another one. Most of the cards have colors on them. Whatever color is on the card played is the color any of the owls can move to. Owls must always move to the next instance of a given color on the board, unless another owl is already on that space. If the space is occupied, the owl may skip along the board to the next instance of the color. In this way players can get their owls to move quickly down the board if they work together to choose the same color in a row on their turns. Some of the cards have a sun token on them. If one of the sun cards is drawn a little sun marker is moved along a sun path at the top of the board. All the owls must make it to the nest before the sun gets to the end of the sun path. Then everyone wins. This game can be thought of as a much improved version of Candy Land. While Candy Land might be okay for two year olds and younger three year olds, this game works much better for later three year olds up through about six or seven. I wouldn't buy it for an eight year old, but older children will enjoy playing this with their younger siblings, as is the case with us. In this game there are small strategic decisions that the children can make to affect the outcome of the game. The strategy is definitely not deep, but it is at a nice level for young ones. It is definitely enough strategy to get the children thinking and practicing working together. This ups the players' higher order thought usage well beyond Candy Land, where there is no strategy involved in gameplay at all. Even with the best use of strategy in the game, there is enough luck that you will still sometimes lose (as you can see us do in our video). This is particularly the case if you play the hardest level of the game with all the owls. Of course there are other times when the luck aspect works in your favor and you still manage to win while using less than optimal strategy. All told, the game strikes a good balance between luck and strategy. The components are colorful and the illustrations are cute. All the pieces are made of biodegradable recycled cardboard. Unfortunately the cardboard for the cards is quite thin and flimsy. For that reason I knocked it down a star because if this game were to be used in a classroom I would recommend laminating the cards. Of course then those cards are no longer biodegradable, which sort of defeats one of the advertising points of the company... So to sum up, I would definitely recommend this game to both parents and teachers, of children in preschool through first grade, looking for a fun game involving color recognition and light strategy. For another great game utilizing color recognition and light strategy in a competitive, rather than cooperative, format check out Monza .

We got this game to start our family tradition of a family board game from Santa for Christmas. We played today and it was great. A fast-paced game play where the game isn't over in 5 minutes. The cooperative play element blew my 4 year old daughter's mind in a great way. It is a game I look forward to playing again, which for a preschooler-aged game says A LOT! Highly recommend!

Excellent

とても楽しく遊べます。運にかかっている部分が大きいので、ゲーム結果は毎回様々だし、フクロウの数によって難易度に変化をつけられるし、カラフルでかわいいし、良い買い物でした。

Age Appropriate, teaches turn-taking, simple enough for a 3 year old child. My great nephew who is 38.5 months was able to learn which cards to move such as the sun or the coloured cards.

Perfect for a 3 years old until 6 or 7 year old it could go. Nice for learning colors and counting. Nobidy get upset when we lose because it is a team work, we win together or we lose together.

Excelente juego para promover trabajo en equipo, a mi hija de 3 años le encantó! Se entretiene mucho tiempo, ayuda para promover la atención y respetar turnos.

Colorful, fun game that promotes cooperation and not competition. My two grand daughters, ages 4 and 5 play together as a team to get the cute little owls home before the sun comes up. They love this game and I do too! No tears. no quarreling. Just fun and learning to cooperate through play. A Peaceable Kingdom!