Horsie Horsie Counting Game

“Horsie Horsie” is one of our favourite Nursery Rhymes. When we used to sing the rhyme to Adam when he was younger we would tap two plastic cups together in time to the beat. These sounded like the horse hooves going clippety-clop. I wanted a way of incorporating the horse hooves to encourage Adam’s early mathematical development. So we created a Horsie Horsie counting game.

Resources needed for the Horsie Horsie counting game

* Two plastic horses, 4 horse shoes and 2 stable – ours was from Tesco

* Dice

* Two sets of numbered horses 1-6 – you can download them from Twinkl.

Over the summer I picked up two sets of Horse sand pit molds for only 50p each – what a bargain! In each set came a horse, horse shoe and a stable. I purchased the sets in purple and pink. They were perfect resources to use as props in our Horsie Horsie counting game. Next I needed horses with numbers on. Luckily Twinkl had just what I was looking for. I printed two sets of the numbers 1-6. I recycled a dice from a board game.

How to set up the Horsie Horsie counting game

To set up the game I placed the two stables in the middle of the table with a horse on either side. These horses were to remind the play what colour their stable was. A set of numbered horses were laid out on each half of the table. The two horse shoes would be used to tap together to create the clippety-clop noise.

How to play the Horsie Horsie counting game

The game is much harder to explain than it is to play – Adam picked it up straight away! Player A (pink horse) rolls the dice but doesnt let Player B (purple horse) see the result.

Player A then bangs the two horse shoes together the amount of times that are shown on the dice. For example, if Player A rolls a 3 they then bang the horse shoes together 3 times. Player B has to count the number of times the horse shoes are banged together. If Player B counts correctly they have to locate that number on the horse cards and place it inside the stable.

If they count incorrectly their horse remains on the table. The game is then reversed for Player B rolls the dice and bangs the horse shoes together whilst Player A counts.

The player that gets all six horses into their stable first wins.

The hardest part for Adam was to stop him telling me what number was on the dice. As soon as he rolled it he wanted to shout out the number. He loved making the clippety-clop noise with the horse shoes and saying whether I had counted the sounds correctly.

Adam was adamant that he had to close his eyes whenever I rolled the dice – despite the fact I rolled the dice under the table! I loved watching his face as he counted whilst I made the horse noises.

Disclaimer: We received a Premium Subscription from Twinkl to review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.