Creative Focus Pick Up Sticks

How to Play

The object of the game is to pick up the most sticks. At the begin of game play, a bundle of sticks is randomly distributed or dropped so that the sticks end up in a tangled pile. The more tangled the resulting disarray, the more challenging the game.

Players must not move any other thing while attempting to remove said stick; if any other stick moves, their turn immediately ends, and they lose a turn. A player who successfully "picks-up sticks" keeps removing sticks until they cause a secondary stick to move, ending their turn.

Different-colored sticks are worth different numbers of points, and the winner is the person with the highest score.

Origin

The date when Pick Up Sticks was invented is unclear, but it has been traced back to the Native Americans, who played it with straws of wheat and passed it on to English settlers back when the United States was still 13 colonies. As it was passed from generation to generation, it developed into a game that was played with shaped pieces of wood. They were either painted with a spectrum of six colors or made from six different shades of wood.