Fireside reading
Count Your Chickens! vs Hoot Owl Hoot! vs Feed the Woozle
Three cooperative classics for ages 3 and up. Which one to buy first depends on what your child enjoys.
The short version
- All three: ages 3+, cooperative, no reading.
- Count Your Chickens!: counting.
- Hoot Owl Hoot!: color matching and a race against the sun.
- Feed the Woozle: movement and a steady hand.
What they have in common
All three put the whole table on one team against the game. Turns are short, no reading is needed, and a round takes about a quarter of an hour. They are the three titles families most often start with, and many end up owning all of them.
Count Your Chickens!: for counters
In Count Your Chickens! you spin, count the spaces and move Mother Hen, bringing chicks back to the coop. The fox can send one back out. It is the best of the three for counting practice, for 2 to 4 players. The Premium Edition swaps the tokens for a wooden hen, wooden chicks and a little coop for pretend play.
Hoot Owl Hoot!: for color matchers
In Hoot Owl Hoot! players draw color cards and fly owls to the next matching space, racing to get every owl into the nest before the sun comes up. It suits children who know their colors but not yet their numbers, and the sun gives real suspense without anyone losing to anyone.
Feed the Woozle: for wiggly kids
Feed the Woozle asks players to carry silly snacks on a spoon to the Woozle's mouth, with a die and a spinner deciding how. It has three levels, plays 2 to 5 and is the most physical of the three. Giant Feed the Woozle has a Woozle over two feet tall and a giant spoon, made for a party or a classroom.
So which one first?
Counting: Count Your Chickens!. Colors and a bit of suspense: Hoot Owl Hoot!. A child who will not sit at the table: Feed the Woozle. For a birthday where the child already has one, buy another of the three; the rules are similar enough that the second is learned in a minute.
