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!

Simple, easy, entertaining game and a great way to teach cooperation, winning and losing, and teamwork to kids at a young age. This game can also be used a matching game with the color and sun cards. It would make a great gift for any young child!

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.

This is a phenomenal game that my kids love to play. Until now, we had only the old games like Candyland and Chutes & Ladders. We barely played games because I couldn't stand to play with them. They also tend to get competitive, which could sour even a fun game. But this game is different. It's a cooperative game in which all players, together, must get the owls (3-6, depending on difficulty) into the nest before the sun rises. There is no reading or numbers involved. The only skill needed is color matching, so even my 2 year old can play. She especially loves to get dramatic each time the sun moves closer to rising. There is also room for strategy, so the older kids can enjoy working their minds. As the owls near the nest and the sun gets closer to sunrise, you can feel the excitement in the room, something you never feel when your sibling is about to beat you at Candyland. I don't feel that the game is teaching that 'everyone is a winner, everyone deserves a trophy' because you don't always win. It's a group effort but the group can definitely lose. It teaches them that when we work together, we can accomplish so much more. As per a different review, we changed the rules slightly to allow one who has to play a sun card to refill his hand and play another card. In short- great game for ages 2-6 and maybe even older!

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 love these cooperative games in our family and this is another great addition to our game collection! My daughter was 3 1/2 at the time of purchase and really loved the "Snug As A Bug In A Rug" game, also by Peaceable Kingdom, so I knew this one would likely be a hit. To sum up this game, it is a lot like Candy Land in that it uses colors, but it is A LOT MORE FUN! There are owls that you are trying to get back home to their nest before the sun rises. There are colored spaces on the board and three levels of play depending on how many owls you play with. The object is simple, you work together to get the owls back to the nest by playing your color cards and moving them along the spiral board to the nest before the sun rises. You can cover a lot of ground by working with your fellow players to figure out the best way to move the owls along. Beware of getting the sun card because you have to play it on your next turn and move the sun closer to the sunrise. You want to get those owls to their nest before the sun rises in order to win! My daughter can sit and play the game over and over again and even as a parent you don't get that mind numbing boredom because each game is different, unlike Candy Land where it is just moving your piece along the colors and after a couple of rounds you are just ready for the game to be OVER!! I highly recommend this game for parents/grandparents/caregivers that would like to play with their children rather than against their children.

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!

I was excited to get this game for my son for Christmas. We are working on learning patience, cooperation and turn taking, and I thought this would be a fun way to practice those lessons. We have not played the game itself yet. I am saving it for him for Christmas. However, the condition the game arrived in was disappointing. I paid for a NEW item, not one that had already been opened and damaged. One of the edges on the outside of the box is all torn up, I assume in a previous owner's attempt to open the box. The envelope the pieces and cards came in was also torn. The condition this game was received in is very disappointing and I am appalled that I would receive an item in this condition, especially during this time of year when it will most likely be given as a Christmas gift. At least the game has all of the pieces and is being gifted to my son and not some other child. I definitely could not gift this to another child in this condition. I am very disappointed. UPDATE: The seller sent a replacement game in an undamaged box and did not ask that the damaged one be returned, which I thought was very generous. I went ahead and kept the one with the damaged box for my son and gifted the other one to my niece and nephew. As far as a review on the product itself, we have since been able to play a few times and all the kids have really enjoyed playing this game. They were all quick to pick up on the rules and work together to get the owls back to the nest. It is a great age appropriate game. We had a 4, 5, and 7 year old playing and they all thought it was fun.

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。

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!

Perfect game where kids play together, not against each other. No competitiveness, no single winner.