When I made plans for our family for New Year’s Eve, I didn’t expect the electricity to go out. Unfortunately, thanks to a wind storm, that’s just what happened. My kids and I were this-close to ringing in the new year in the dark and my husband had to head to work to help restore the power. Eating supper by candlelight was an adventure and the odds of watching a movie slowly disintegrated as the clock ticked closer to bedtime.
My kids and I talked about what to do when my daughter, still a little stunned from her bubble bath suddenly plunging into darkness, reminded us that we could still play games. How right she was! We each got a flashlight, our favorite board game, and hunkered down by the warmth of our gas-powered fireplace for the remainder of the evening.
I’ve been adding to our game closet over the years and have curated quite a collection of games the whole family likes to play. The educator in me loves all the sneaky ways skills are built into games. Fine motor skills, one-to-one correspondence, and counting are easily worked into many games for toddlers and preschoolers. And once kiddos graduate to school-age games it’s like the flood gates open up because there are So. Many. Options.
I’ve listed some of our favorites below and included some of the skills each game addresses.
Snail’s Pace Race
Ages Toddler – Preschool
Skills: color recognition, turn-taking, prediction, one-to-one correspondence
A game where everyone wins is always a great choice for young kiddos. In this one, players take turns scooting the snails to the finish line and predicting which one will reach the finish first.
Count Your Chickens
Ages Toddler – Preschool
Skills: counting, cooperation, one-to-one correspondence
Cooperative games are the way to go when first introducing games to young children. In this one, everyone is on the same team and working together to get the chicks to the chicken coop before nightfall.
Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game
Ages: Toddler – Late Preschool
Skills: fine motor, color recognition, turn-taking
I think it’s pretty safe to say my kiddos have just about outgrown this one, but boy it was a good choice for quite a while! It was one of the first games both of my children learned how to master and it will always have a soft spot in my heart.
Sleeping Queens
Ages: Kindergarten – Adult
Skills: basic addition/subtraction, strategy, handling disappointment
Have you ever heard of this one? I stumbled across it at a local toy store and bought it for my daughter for Valentine’s day. It was an instant hit! It was also developed by a child, which accounts for the unorthodox rules and silly names of some of the cards. Cupcake queen anyone?
Sum Swamp
Ages: Kindergarten – Elementary School
Skills: basic addition/subtraction, one-to-one correspondence, fine motor
I bought this for my daughter right before she entered kindergarten as a way to practice her math skills. My preschool son has played as well (I think the frog pawn is a big reason why) with a little modification.
Connect Four
Ages: Late Preschool – Elementary School
Skills: strategy
This was a recent thrift store find and I’ll admit I did a little happy dance when I found it. I love reliving classic games from my childhood with my kiddos.
Guess Who
Ages: Late Preschool – Elementary School
Skills: rationalization, deduction, questioning
I don’t know what it is about this game but both of my kiddos love it. To me, it’s hard for the kids to pick up on how to ask the questions but somehow they’ve each caught on, even the four-year-old has been playing it for a while now.
Spot-it
Ages: Late Preschool – Adult
Skills: visual discrimination
My daughter’s kindergarten teacher introduced us to this game and it’s now the most-played game in our household. Disney has a similar game called Eye-Found It. We own both but we reach for Spot-It SO much more because it has a little more variety and different ways to play.
Tenzie
Ages: Late Preschool – Adult
Skills: subitizing (teacher term for quickly recognizing how many are in a small set)
Full disclosure: we do not own this game. But my mom does and my kids LOVE it. It’s a quick game, spans a wide range of ages and can be easily adapted to play in different ways. I also love that mom has it at her house and I don’t have to be responsible for all those dice!
UNO
Ages: Kindergarten – Adult
Skills: Strategy, number recognition
Playing his game with my daughter brought me back to sleepovers with my childhood bestie. We would play this game for HOURS and would get so competitive. I was quite surprised how quickly my daughter caught on to this game but it’s been one we return to time and time again. We bought her UNO Attack for Christmas and, while she enjoys it, I think the basic UNO is a better fit for us as a family.
As my children get older I look forward to adding more games to our closet. Hopefully, we won’t face any more winter power outages but if we do? We are ready!
