GAME IDEA: Counting, sorting, colors and MORE!

This game has very durable pieces and the different ways it can be played are endless! Although the instructions below relate to mounted lessons, this could easily be incorporated into unmounted lessons as well!

Riding skills this game can help students practice:

• Walk-halt-walk transitions
• Steering
• Verbal commands
• Rein transition from 2-1-2
• Rein acquisition (putting down reins and picking them back up w/ correct hand position)
• Neck reining (suggestion: alternate hand use)

Equine Assisted Learning skills this game can help students practice:

• Fine motor skills (life skill)
• Finger, hand, and grip strength and coordination (life skill)
• Colors (life and/or educational skill)
• Animals (life skill)
• Number recognition (math skill)
• Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, etc. (math skill)

Suggested Arena Setup:

1. For 3-4 riders, Set up a total of 4 barrels. One barrel should be in each corner of your arena and set far enough away from the rail so a horse can park on each side.
2. Place the bears in a small bucket and put them on two barrels on one end of your arena. Place the colored sorting cups on the barrels on the opposite end.
3. Remember to incorporate your riding skills and give specific places to practice them (example: whoa at the barrel and transfer reins from two to one hand before choosing your bears). Depending on the level of your rider and what riding skills you are working on, incorporate arena figures and patterns such as weaving, circles, change of rein, serpentine, etc to get the bears from the barrel to ‘their home’ of the colored cups.

This image shows the game with just the bears but there are also dice and tongs you can use to change up the game and add in different fine motor skill, grip, and hand strength challenges. You can also find sets that are dinosaurs, fruit/animals/shapes, etc.

Additional Tips & Ideas:

Tip: Add an index card in with the bears that gives the riders different tasks to do at each stop or station. This will help the lesson flow more smoothly and helps volunteers who might be supporting the students have ideas of what type of questions they can ask the student. Here are a few sample questions you could put on cards.

• “1 of each color”
• “2 of favorite color”
• “2 red and 2 blue”
• “Count to 4, any colors”
• “3 yellow and 1 green”

Suggestion from Instructor Nancy M: “One of my volunteers made up really creative cards using the horses names. For example: ‘Magnum had 5 bears and Skyler took two of them, how many bears does Magnum have left?'”.

Want to learn more about topics mentioned in this post? Check out the Intuitive Instructor Content below:

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