Welcome to Day 3 of my Using Games in School series, today we’ll be talking about preschool games to play with your kids. But first off:
Benefits of preschool games:
- It helps increase their attention span.
- It teaches losing and winning gracefully.
- It teaches turn-taking.
- It improves empathy.
- It can build a foundation for skills needed later in life.
Preschool Games for ages 2-3
Don’t Break the Ice – I like this game for the very young because it’s less than 5 minutes to play. It’s also a great way for you as Mom to get out some aggravation as you pound those ice cubes .
Memory– there are 10 million variations of this on Amazon, I had shared with me: homemade memory game (my version), earth game, and sea animals, milk bottle cap game. I have several more pinned. For ages 2-3, I would only have out 4 matches and put them face up, as your kid becomes more familiar with the game start with them facedown, and let them leave it turned up as they turn them over looking for matches. You can gradually increase the skill involved. If you do a google search you can find literally hundreds of versions to print off, or you could make your own using index cards and stickers, or buy two sets of flash cards to make your set.
Cootie– I have to admit my kids primarily used this for fine motor skill, rather than playing the game, but it is still a great beginning game, and then we used it again when we learned about insect body parts. For kids really struggling with attention span I would play the Mini Cootie Game. It’s a very quick play in that version for the littlest guys, and is a great distraction at restaurants or in lines.
Give a Dog a Bone– You are walking your dog and collecting bones based on the number of dogs in the tile you landed on. This is a nice game because it can introduce your child to competitive aspects of getting the most without it feeling overly competitive.
I found this post: Games for 3 Year Olds that covers many of the same ones and several more to play. My only disagreement, I would not play Chutes and Ladders with a 3 year old, it can take a very long time to play, and none of mine had the attention or ability to deal with the disappointment of sliding from the top all the way to start at that age.
Older Preschool Games (4-5)
Can You See What I See-We still play this game on a regular basis because it is Princess’ favorite game. Much like the books you are trying to find items on a card to match to what you have. The winner is the first one to hit all of the matches.
Digger’s Garden– This is another game that grows with you. You can start to play it in preschool, which my kids did, and they still play it now. And regularly beat me. You are trying to match colors, shapes, and or numbers as you place tiles on the board, the more of those matched the higher your points.
Walk the Dogs– You are working to gather the most dogs of the same kind in a row. This is a great game to work on strategy at an early age, how much do you want to risk to get that large number of dogs in a row. It’s also a great game for any dog lover.
One Banana, Two Banana– Red Ted Art suggested this one, and it looks like a fun game for a monkey lover.
Treasure Trot– This is a pattern recognition game, you are trying to collect 2 sets of 3 cards, you can match color or symbol. This is a great game for a horse lover.
Round and Round-based off of the song Wheels on the Bus, you try to gather up the verses to the song.
Penguin Rescue– This is a 6 player game (bonus for more players) similar to Candyland in that you move based off of colors. It’s quicker than Candyland because you don’t get almost to the end and then get sent to the beginning.
Monopoly Junior– This is the only version of the game I can tolerate (a product of too many disastrous games with my brother), but this game really helped my boys with counting and adding. You will almost certainly see this game again when I cover math games.
I will have to admit, that as my kids grew into older preschoolers I tended to simplify rules of games intended for an older audience, so many of the games I’ll bring up later on in this series can be played with them.
Homemade Preschool Games
Hungry Bear ABC Game– This is a great example of making your own game, that the kids enjoy. She used a cardboard box, some magnetic letters, and a small plastic bear to make a fun game.
Bear Cave Counting Game– Another example of a homemade game using similar materials, this time gummy bears and a dice were used for playing pieces.
Tic Tac Toe– this is a beginning strategy game, and the bonus of it is you can easily make many variations, this one they used stones and paper to make their game.
Repurposing Games for Older kids to preschoolers– use the games you already have and change the skills to what your child can do. We do this all the time with games in our family. It lets me not play endless rounds of Go Fish.
For more game ideas to play with your family, check out my pinterest board:
Posts in this series: