Snakes Games for Kids

"Discovery Kids: Snake Safari"

• Kids try taming snakes during their jungle adventures in 505 Games' "Discovery Kids: Snake Safari," available for the Nintendo DS platform. In their quest to hunt exotic species, players venture out on dangerous missions to hunt exotic snake species, where they feed, protect and treat their captured species.

Hisss Card Game

• Kids match colors and make snakes from heads to tails when playing Gamewright's Hisss card game, recommended for ages 4 and up. Players make long or short snakes, making sure not to create irregular-looking snakes (such as one with two heads or tails); players also make various-colored snakes, including purple, yellow and rainbow. Upon finishing making a snake, kids add it to their snake pit, with the player having the most snakes at the game's end winning.

Pretend Play/Role-Play Games

• Pretend play games offer kids a close alternative to actual snake interaction. Using toy snakes, other toy animals, human action figures or themselves as characters, kids recreate a scene from a snake movie or program, or create their own scene. Depending on the content of pretend play games, kids can grow a snake to the size that best suits their needs by using Toysmith's "Ginormous Growing Cobra Snake." After kids put the snake in a bucket of cool water, the 12-inch reptile grows up to 5 feet in length over the course of several days (kids may dry out the snake and reuse it numerous times). Aside from pretend play games, kids can use the Toysmith product for snake-growing contests, with the winner's snake growing larger than her opponent's.

  Kids can incorporate a snake's origins into pretend play with GeoCentral's "Growing Pet Snake Egg," which kids submerge in water. After one of four snake varieties hatch within 12 to 24 hours, the egg totally breaks and kids watch the snake grow to full size within a couple of days.

"Snakes 'n Letters"

• Word formations protect Hammy Hamster from snakes in "Snakes 'n Letters," accessible at the Crystal Squid site. Players form three-to-eight-letter words to prevent letter-carrying snakes from disturbing Hammy's sleep. Green letters add a score multiplier, while players use a "Wild" asterisk in place of a letter. To attack snakes, players click letters and click "Submit" once they form a word. If players make a mistake, they click "Clear" or click the letter to remove it. Successful words add to players' "Complete-O-Meter," which when filling in completely, advances players to the next level. Should a snake reach Hammy and use Hammy for lunch, the game ends.

"Snake Runner"

• Kids steer a continually growing snake through 25 levels when playing "Snake Runner," accessible at the Armor Games site. After choosing a level of difficulty/speed, players press the directional arrow keys to move the snake. To complete a level, players must hit the red block; if they hit a wall or part of their body, they restart the level. As the game progresses, players must collect a specified number of coins for each level.

"Sneaky Snakes Color and Shape Pattern Game"

• Recommended for ages 4 and up, Learning Resources' "Sneaky Snakes Color &Shape Pattern Game" lets kids use tiles to create, extend or finish patterns on a snake's tongue. Spinning a spinner to collect tiles, the first player to complete his pattern wins the game.