How to Play the Game Trucks, Trains and Trouble

Rocket is an entertaining game for very young children who may have never played a card game; some as young as four years old may be able to play once they are taught the basics as explained here. Three to six players make for a good game.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• An ordinary deck of cards

1. Begin by teaching small children to recognize hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades. Tell them what each of these is called and use the word “suit.” Explain that when they play the card game “Rocket,” they will be trying to collect seven cards of the same suit but that it doesn’t matter which suit they collect. Also explain that during the game they should not tell what suit they are saving.
2. Deal each player seven cards. The rest of the cards won’t be used. Players pick up their cards and hold them so other players can’t see. Following is a description of a game with three players.
3. The first player (we’ll call him Ted) decides what suit he will be saving; it will be the suit in which he already has the most cards. Let’s say that Ted has decided to save hearts. He takes any card that is not a heart and puts it face down in front of the player to his left (we’ll call her Tammy).
4. Tammy puts a card she does not want in front of the third player, Mickey. Then she picks up the card Ted gave her.
5. Mickey puts a card he does not want in front of Ted. Then Mickey picks up the card Tammy gave her.
6. Ted picks up the card Mickey put in front of him and the game goes on like this.
7. When a player only needs one more card, he says, “My rocket will be blasting off in one more second.”
8. When a player has accumulated seven cards in the same suit, he calls out “Blast Off.” If two players get seven cards at the same time, the first one to call out, “Blast Off!” is the winner.