Simple Logic Game

I have about an hour to an hour and a half of time in the morning where Mr. Two and I have some one-on-one time together, during Mr. Three's nap.  I do love this little bit of time to play games and do chores together with Mr. Two.

Here's a fun little game we played this morning.  You could easily adapt this to use any small items you already have in your home.

What's in my Hand?

You will need:

two matching sets of small objects (we used turtles and frogs, but you could also use plastic dinosaurs, beads, pom poms, buttons, etc.)

a small bag to hide the objects in

Here's how you play:

First, divide your two sets of objects, placing one set in your bag and the other on your table, floor, or  wherever you are playing.

Have one person reach into the bag and choose one object to hide in their hand.  Leave the remaining objects hidden in the bag.

The other person needs to ask yes or no questions to determine which item is hiding in the other person's hand.

As each question is answered, the person asking the questions removes all of the items that are now not possibilities for what is in the other person's hand.

When the questioner has narrowed down the items to one, the answerer opens their hand and they check to see if they match.

Here's one round of play with Mr. Two to give you a better idea of how this is done.

I didn't take a picture of the group of turtles and frogs all together, but at the start of the game, Mr. Two has selected one creature, which is hiding in his hand, and the other animals are hidden in a bag.  The second set of turtles and frogs is on the couch.

Me:  Does your animal have spots?
Mr. Two:  No.
I remove all the animals with spots from the group.

Me:  Is your animal a turtle?
Mr. Two:  No.
I remove all of he turtles.

Me:  Does your frog have two colors?
Mr. Two:  Yes.
I remove all of the solid colored frogs.

Me:  Does your frog have a skinny stripe on its back?
Mr. Two:  No.
I remove the frog with the skinny black stripe.

Me:  Does your frog have blue on it?
Mr. Two:  Yes.
This narrows it down to one frog.  We check to see if this is the same frog Mr. Two has in his hand.

We made a match!  Now we can switch roles and play again.

You can increase or decrease the level of difficulty by controlling the number of objects you are using.  You could either use like or not alike items in your sets.  You could make sets with only plastic dinosaurs, or you may have many different small plastic items in your sets, such as beads, farm animals, wiggle eyes, pom poms, and dinosaurs.

For very young children, you will want to use items that only have one or two differences to make the questioning easier for them to begin.  (Example:  you could use colored bears that are large and small, so they would only have to ask about color and size, instead of being overwhelmed with too many variables.)

Have fun building logic skills through play!

* Linking here and here.