The variety in animal characteristics is so fascinating and vast. Some animals slither, some swim, some fly, and some are JUMPERS. Jumping animals can be found all over the world, and the High Tail It! game takes us to the Outback of Australia to a mob of kangaroos, all trying to make their way across the river!
Did you know…
- A male kangaroo is called a buck, boomer, or jack
- A female kangaroo is called a doe, flyer, or jill
- Most kangaroos are left-handed
- Kangaroos can use their tail as a 5th leg
- Kangaroos are fast, can swim, and are herbivores
Australia is such a cool place with beautifully diverse and unique plant and animal life, and we have loved all our studying of Australia and learning about culture, geography, and more alongside playing this awesome SimplyFun game!
HOW TO PLAY
The Goal: Be the first player to get all five of your kangaroos around the board and across the river.
Each player gets a colored set of 5 kangaroos. On each turn, players will get to move any ONE of their kangaroos.
All kangaroos get placed on the board at the beginning of the game in the starting area. Roos are placed one at a time, in turn order, one per square.
Kangaroos can be moved by either
- Walking: move one space in any direction (8 possibilities)
- Jumping: choose a “pivot” kangaroo, or one that will be jumped over that’s in a straight line from the jumping kangaroo in any direction. The jumping kangaroo has to be able to land an equal number of spaces past the pivot in relation to where it started.
Jumping is obviously the fastest way to move your kangaroos! Visually calculating which kangaroos can be used as pivots and the best possible moves takes careful planning, strategic thinking, and lots of spatial/visual reasoning!
There are a few more rules about jumping:
- only one kangaroo can be jumped in a single jump
- kangaroos must land in empty spaces
- all kangaroos must stay on the board
- no jumping over the pond in the center of the board
- kangaroos MAY make multiple jumps in a single turn, using different pivots and following all other rules
And that’s the game! Players have to think carefully about which kangaroos to move when. Don’t leave a man behind or he’ll have to walk himself across the river!
When kangaroos have crossed the river, they are removed from the board. The first player to get all 5 kangaroos across the river, wins!
High Tail It! has so many fantastic gameschooling possibilities for math, geography, and more. The task of visually assessing the positions and possibilities for movement around the board takes careful attention and sharp thinking and will help a child develop patterns of thinking and problem solving skills in the same way that traditional math does!
Thanks to Simply Fun for sharing with us!
