Collect and Count Your Fruit

• What: Hi Ho! Cherry-O Game
• When: Three to six years
• Why: Educational, easy to play, fun
• Where: Amazon

Do you remember collecting colored fruit in Hi Ho! Cherry-O? In this classic childhood game, kids picked cherries to try and be the first to fill their buckets. Now Hasbro has a new version of the same counting game aimed at preschoolers.

Hi Ho! Cherry-O game on Amazon

In the original game, everyone collected tiny red cherries from their tree, a piece of cardboard with holes just the right size to hold the round fruit. Now, kids can pick from blueberries, cherries, oranges, and green apples in the race to be the first to fill their bucket. Players spin the spinner and take or lose fruit depending on which space they land on. 

But wait! The newer version has a cooperative mode as well. Kids try to pick all the fruit before completing the simple nine-piece puzzle, which indicates when the bird swoops in to feast. Get the fruit before the bird gets assembled, and every player wins. 

Each tree has ten fruits, so kids can work on counting skills as well as simple math like addition and subtraction. The spinner includes spaces for collecting one to four fruits, as well as bird and dog spaces, which cause two fruits to go back to the tree, and the spilled basket, which empties all the player’s fruit back to the tree. The game requires no literacy skills, and has lots of bright colors and hands-on practice with numbers. The tiny fruit, however, makes this game unsuitable to play or give to kids who still put itty bitty pieces in their mouth. 

If you want a game that can be played cooperatively or competitively that builds counting skills, look no further than your next basket of cherries with Hi Ho! Cherry-O.