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Ready to launch your child’s ability to plan, problem solve, concentrate, and use their logic skills? Counting Sheep…without falling asleep by SmartGames is a compact 1 player game for ages 7+. Here’s what we thought of it.
A special thank you to Timberdoodle Co. for providing this complimentary game in exchange for our honest review.
With all the pieces and challenge booklet enclosed in a sturdy travel case, Counting Sheep…without falling asleep is ready to take on the go and grab for breaks throughout the day. I love the cute sheep pasture board with 7 clear plastic puzzle pieces with sheep and one for the shed.
In each of the 60 challenges, for each advancing level of difficulty from starter to wizard, the game booklet has a setup image or various clues to get you started, and then solutions are found in the back of the booklet.
12 starter challenges feature visual images of some sheep pieces, leaving you to fit the rest of the pieces on the board. Each sheep piece is shaped differently, and has different numbers of sheep on it, or a unique configuration. When you place the pieces on the board, the sheep and the shed can’t be placed in the water, only clear parts of the pieces can overlap with water.
My 10 year old understood the rules easily and was able to advance through the first few challenges with ease. She’s been a SmartGames fan since she was little and announced “This is fun…next challenge!”
The next 12 junior challenges show one or two pieces placed on the board, along with the hint of the numbers of sheep who should be placed in each of the four grassy quadrants on the board. At this point some puzzles were still simple enough for my daughter to do on her own, but sometimes she needed some extra help.
Moving up into expert and we have images of one sheep piece for most of them, and number hints, but some of the quadrants have question marks instead of finite numbers. By this level my daughter and I were both scratching our heads and were stumped by some of the challenges. (Thank goodness for solution keys!)
Once you hit master and wizard levels there are no more pictures of sheep pieces, and more question marks on various quadrants. They aren’t impossible, but they do require a good deal of critical thinking and perseverance to try a lot of variations! This is where strong deductive reasoning skills are built as you rule out all the possibilities until you find the one that works.
I always appreciate how SmartGames slowly increases the difficulty so students aren’t overwhelmed and typically gain greater skills as they progress through the levels. I really love that these compact games are perfect for travel and even engage adults with their puzzles.
Counting Sheep…without falling asleep is included in the 2026 3rd Grade Curriculum Kit, and also available individually.