Acorns - A Variation of Oh Nuts! - a cooperative play game

My grandchildren and I go for frequent walks. They are always collecting things along the way. Some acorns have given me an idea for a variation of an old favorite...Oh Nuts! I decided to make it a cooperative play game. My grandchildren need games where they are working together. In fact, this week our Bible verse has been about unity.

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. Ps. 133:1.

I drew a quick picture of a tree and added some circles. Charles colored the picture. We will place an acorn in each of the spaces. The object will be to work together to get all 10 of the acorns off the tree. (These could be small picture cards of nuts, buttons, chips or other markers. They could be real acorns for fun!)

NOW...how to play the new cooperative play version...

I have many sets of Oh Nuts! skill cards. I will select the cards that we are going to work with. For example, let's select the State and Capital cards. The cards have the name of a state. When Douglas draws a card, he must name the capital of the state. Charles likes to play, too. He is just learning the location of all the states right now. So instead of naming the capital, he will locate it on the map. 

The deck for an Oh Nuts! game has some additional cards. About one-third of the deck are OH NUTS! cards. These cards simply have the words on them. For some decks I got creative and even drew a nut.


To Play

After the cards have been shuffled and placed in a draw pile, play begins. The first player draws a card and gives the correct response. If he is correct, his turn continues and he draws another card. He continues to draw cards and give responses until he draws an "Oh Nuts!" card. When he draws this card he gets to remove a nut from the tree and place it in our "basket" (just a small dish). Then his turn ends. If he should give an incorrect response, his turn ends without collecting a nut from the tree. Players take turns drawing cards, giving responses, and collecting "acorns."


I use care to take the focus off who has collected how many acorns but saying things like: "Wow! WE are collecting lots of acorns." "How many acorns have WE collected?" or "How many more acorns are still on the tree?"

Check out OH NUTS! Deluxe an over-sized version.

Here is how to make and play OH NUTS! includes a fun story of this game being used in a classroom.