Updated on January 21, 2016
The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game Review
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For Christmas 2015, I really wanted to find a good board game to play with The Heir. He’s 3.5 years old now and I felt like it was high time we start a family game night with him. I started reading some reviews and asking friends, and The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game came highly recommended. I jumped right in and ordered it and kept my fingers crossed that it would be a hit here too. To say that The Heir loves this game would be a gross understatement. While King Dad was off work for the holidays, we must have played ten rounds of The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game every single day. It was all The Heir could think about for that whole week, and it’s still a big hit though we aren’t playing ten rounds a day anymore! Thinking of grabbing a board game to play with your young children? Here’s why I think The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game is an excellent choice.
The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game is a board game for ages 3+ that can be played by 2 to 4 players. Every player gets a log with five coloured holes in it, and the coloured acorns go inside the “tree” (the bottom of the game box). When it’s your turn, you use the Squirrel Squeezer to pick up the acorn(s) that correspond to your spin and place it in the matching hole in your log. The game spinner has the five acorn colours on it, a choose any one acorn space, and a choose any two acorns space, but it also has a Sneaky Squirrel (take an acorn from another player’s log), Sad Squirrel (skip a turn), and the Squirrel Storm (lose all your acorns). The object of the game is to be the first to fill your log with five acorns that match the coloured holes in the log. There’s a bit of strategy involved, colour matching, fine motor skills, patience, and most of all, FUN!
As this was The Heir’s first board game, I wasn’t entirely sure how well it was going to go over. I figured the hardest part for him would be the whole taking turns thing. I don’t know about your threenager, but my threenager isn’t always the best at sharing, so I wasn’t sure if he would be happy about taking turns. Then again, this is what board games are all about and I was hoping that it would be a great way to teach him about patience and waiting your turn. The first round of the game went quite well! We read over the rules with The Heir and talked about how everything worked. Then we started to play. He loved spinning the game spinner and would overflow with excitement waiting for it to stop. Even when King Dad or I had our turns, he would lean over the spinner and say “I wonder what you’re going to get!”, then when it would land on something he would tell us what it was and say “I need that too!”. He got the hang of the Squirrel Squeezer really quickly too. His little hands had no trouble picking up the acorns with the Squirrel Squeezer, though he sometimes dropped his acorn before getting it securely in the log. He absolutely loved it when someone (even himself) landed on the Squirrel Storm. He made up a storm sound effect to go with it and took great pleasure in popping all the acorns out of his log and back into the tree when he got the Squirrel Storm.
As with any board game, nobody wins all the time. This is just a fact of life, and while it can be disappointing not to win, we wanted to show The Heir how not to be a sore loser. He caught on really quickly that the appropriate response when a game ends (win or lose) is to say “good game!” and high five all the other players. He had the chance to play the game with his cousins over the weekend (ages 6 and 4), and the three of them caught on really quickly and were playing without any adults helping for quite a while. I call that a win.
For a first board game, The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game is a great option. It’s easy to learn (even for a three year old), and has just the right balance of fun, development, and learning. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, you can buy it HERE.
What was your kids’ first board game? Are there any board games you’d recommend for the 3+ age group?
This game is SO cute!! Sadly, my little guy is too old for it now, but I would totally get this for my cousin’s daughters. The cuteness factor alone makes me want to buy it! lol
We love this game. I use it all the time at work. It has so many skills all in one game.
My 4 year old loves board games!! We had to throw a few of them out recently because my toddler destroyed them!! UGH!! This looks like a really cute game. Maybe when the toddler gets a bit older we can try it out! I know my older kiddo would love it!
LOVE the use of gross and fine motor skills for this game! My boys are too old for this, but man! I wish they had this a few years ago!!
Friendly Farm Lotto was my son’s first board game. We still play it as a family. http://www.gladius.ca/en/The-Friendly-Farm-Lotto?keyword=lotto
A board game called “Hunt and Seek” where you have to be the first to find the image on the card was another one that we played early on and still play to this day.
This looks like so much fun. I think I’m gonna have to add this one to our game night stash. Thanks for the review 🙂
This Board Game looks like something my Family could spend hours playing (yes i mean that literally LOLZ)..I am always on the lookout for things to do with my family, and board games are a huge hit!!!! I just wanted to say Thanks for doing such a wonderful Review, any questions i may of had for this board game , you have answered in your review..I believe you have found a New Fan of your Reviews 🙂
what a cute game.
Super cute game!! I love that it teaches a wide range of skills from fine motor to color matching!! I also love that it teaches kiddos to be good sports because like you said, nobody wins every time!!