My Very First Games: Gitti Giraffe

Gitti Giraffe – as with other titles in HABA's "My Very First Games" series – is a game for small children that's designed to teach them the concept of rules. In this case, players need to choose colors, stack blocks and carefully move a tipsy object across a table.

The components of Gitti Giraffe are two trees, a color die, foliage cards, eight blocks and a giraffe on wheels. To set up the game, place the trees some distance apart, place the foliage cards on the trees, and stack one block on the giraffe's body with its head on top.

On a turn, a player rolls the color die, then uses a block of this color to lengthen the giraffe's neck (taking the head off at first, then replacing it). The player then pushes the giraffe from one tree to another. If no blocks fall, the player receives a foliage card as a reward; if one or more blocks fall, the player gets no reward and the blocks are returned to the pool. When all the foliage cards have been claimed, the player with the most such cards wins.