Hi Ho Cherry-O

As one of the original players of this game...
My parents invented this game back in 1960. I remember sitting down with them as a four-year-old along with my sisters and "trying out" the game as mom and dad took notes. It did help us all learn how to count, which was exactly the idea. Every one of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren learned basic counting with this game. It's simple and easy to understand, which is why this game has been around and has been successful for so many years.

My dad recently passed away and one of the things he was most proud of was inventing this game that helped so many children learn math. It's nice to see that part of his legacy is knowing that Hi-Ho-the-Cherry-O is the most popular education board game sold by Amazon 50 years later.

upsets my daughter
At first glance my daughter seemed quite intrigued by the little fruity pieces. In the meantime, I was just wondering silently how long it would take for us to lose a few of the tiny things, whereas if we did, we'd have to throw the whole game away. Anyway, that was our first impression.

As we started the game, I found it very annoying to have to load all the little fruit pieces onto the board, 40 in all. 40 pieces tinier than a marble. And if you take your basket out of the hole, the little fruit pieces will roll into the hole where the basket was and to retrieve it you have to disrupt the entire board and put back all 40 pieces again. That is of course worst case, but it did (and WILL) happen, and was annoying.

You spin the spinner and if it lands on a number, you take that many fruits off your tree. If the spinner lands on the dog or bird you give back 2, and if it lands on the spilled basket, you give back everything in your basket.

There is a little over a 40% chance that the spinner will land you on one of the spaces where you need to give back your fruits. My poor daughter, through hard luck, kept landing on either the number 1, the dog, or the bird. So whatever little she got, she would have to keep putting it back.

This game bored me to tears and worst of all it made my daughter very sad. She did not have a fit but she just had a really sad face every time the spinner landed on the dog or bird. This game is pure luck, so there was no way to exercise her mind except for counting up to 4 fruits or taking away 2 of them.

Would not recommend. NOT FUN AT ALL. Lots of better games out there.

Great educational game for little ones
Bought for my 2 1/2 year old son, he likes the counting and the colors! I remember this game from when I was little, it's still a good one! :)

Perfect for 3-Year-Old, Improved over Classic
I was skeptical when my daughter got this for Christmas, but the game has some minor improvements over the classic that bored me as a (admitedly too old) kid. Most importantly, the addition of the bird was a great idea; when the spinner lands on the bird, another piece of the bird puzzle must be assembled, adding a "race against the bird" element that can allow all players to be on the same team or even allow a single child to play the game by themselves, trying to get all the fruit picked alone before the bird is done. Secondly, but less importantly, making four kinds of fruit instead of just cherries makes the game more fun to look at and play. My 3-year-old daughter loves this game and (unlike many other games) she doesn't get bored with following the rules.

Classic Counting Game
I remember playing this as a kid and it was a first choice for each of my kids as well. My oldest loved this game and now my youngest is loving and learning with it as well. You can't go wrong, its a classic, its fun, colorful and teaches them!