For this week’s “Gifts for the Gifted” post, I have another great product from ThinkFun. It’s called, “Shell Game.”
The concept of the game is to place the colored hermit crabs under the shells as directed at the top of each challenge page. You are then supposed to slide the shells around (without peeking underneath) until you think you have moved the colored crabs to the new spots shown on the bottom of the page.
If you think Shell Game is easy, you’re probably not playing it correctly! I learned this from my 4th graders who seemed to be going through the challenges kind of rapidly. I sat down with them, and realized they were just moving the shells around. To truly meet the challenge, the player must slide the shells only along the lines provided. This makes it much harder.
ThinkFun games are always a fan favorite in my classroom, and this one is no exception. Although it’s designed for one player, I can usually allow up to 3 students at a center with the game, and they take turns on the challenges.
This game is recommended for children 8 and up. I would definitely agree with that recommendation. I think younger children would get frustrated or play the game incorrectly.
One of my students came up with an interesting solution to the problem of remembering which crab was under each shell. He turned the shells different ways for each color so he always knew the crab hidden underneath. According to him, this “isn’t cheating, just a good strategy.” I have to admit that is a clever way to keep track of the colors as you whisk them around the page!
Some other recent reviews I’ve done of ThinkFun games are Gravity Maze and Robot Turtles (a nice center to have during Hour of Code). Also, if you are looking for more educational toys and games, I have a Pinterest Board here.
My Gifts for the Gifted series will continue each Friday through the end of December. Here is a link to last week’s post, the first in this year’s batch.
(Full Disclosure: I did receive Shell Game for free to review from ThinkFun.)
