Educational Insights Game Review #2: The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game!

Get it here.

The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game! is another great game by Educational Insights that I have the pleasure of reviewing! If you are an SLP, the odds are that you own Hi-Ho Cherry-O. And, odds are, you're pretty tired of it (I know I am). This is were this game offers a great replacement since the game play follows the same principle of play as Hi-Ho-Cherry-O, but it adds some additional educational components, which makes it more viable for the therapy room.

Game components.

The object of the game is simple: collect different-colored acorns from the tree to fill up your tree stump. Once you have collected all five colors, you win. A spinner dictates which color acorn you get to collect. But watch out -- if you get the storm cloud all your acorns get blown back onto the tree. And if you get the sad squirrel, you lose a turn. Also beware of the thieving squirrel that allows other players to steal one of your acorns from your tree stump. If you  get lucky, your spinner will land on a color, a "1", or a "2", which are the fields needed to pick acorns. The recommended age range is 3 years and up, but I played this with language-delayed third-graders and they still liked it.


This student needed a prompt to pinch
the squirrel lower in order to
move his paws.

Not only does this game work on counting and color-matching skills, but there are other educational aspects. The thing that really differentiates this game from Hi-Ho Cherry-O is the fine motor component: on their turn, players use the plastic squirrel tongs to pick up the acorns. This really allows them to work on their hand strength and fine motor control while playing! Also, I find that the pieces in this game don't get lost as easily as the cherries in Hi-Ho Cherry-O as they are a little bigger and can be easily counted during clean-up (there should be four of each color) to make sure they're all still there. The game components are also higher quality and the acorns have a rubber-y texture to them.

This would make a great game for preschool SLPs as well as Occupational Therapists. I know I will be showing it to the OT at my site! I also know that now that I have this game, I will donate my old Hi-Ho Cherry-O to Goodwill since I'd rather play this.

If you prefer dogs to squirrels, check out a similar dog version of this game by clicking here.

~Viola