Educational Insights Game Review #3: The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Card Game!

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I have another Educational Insights game review for you! If you like "The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game!", you might enjoy the card game version, as well! This stand-alone game is an especially neat tool for SLPs, school psychologists, or behavior therapists to target impulse control, attention, and social skills. The recommended age range is 4 years and up and this game supports 3-6 players (or two students and an adult facilitator).

Slap the matching acorn card.

As with the original "The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game!", the object of this game is to collect as many acorns as possible. This version consists of two separate card decks: rectangular acorn cards that come in four different colors and elongated squirrel cards. The acorn cards are placed in the middle of the table so that all players can easily reach them. Next, one person who is the "dealer" (or the SLP) pulls out one of the elongated squirrel cards. For each card that has a squirrel on a blue background, the dealer says, "Sneaky" -- nothing happens for these cards. However, if the card depicts a squirrel and an acorn, the dealer says, "Snacky!" and players have to slap the matching colored acorn card. Whoever slaps the card first, receives the acorn card. Sometimes, a snacky card features two acorns, in which case two players have a chance to earn a card.

This game emphasizes a student's vigilance and reaction speed. Players have to pay close attention to what cards are being drawn and be the quickest to touch the matching color. I had several students attempt to "hover" their hands over the acorn cards, which offered a great opportunity to talk about why this might be considered cheating. In order to increase students' impulse control during this game, I implemented the rule that if they slapped the wrong card, or slapped when a "Sneaky" card was being dealt, they would have to return an acorn card from their pile.

This game is great for Speech because the turns are very quick -- which is important when playing a game during articulation drills or when in large therapy groups. You could even have students complete different tasks for differently colored acorns. For example, for each yellow acorn, students practice their target word 5 times, for each red acorn they practice 10 times, etc. This would also be a great game for students working on /s/-blends ("sneaky," "snacky," "squirrel").

Stay posted! In the next few days I will be reviewing my very favorite game of all the samples I received!

~Viola