Day 23 in the series
We are a gaming family, plain and simple. I still remember sitting at my bridal shower as my mom and sisters presented me with a honeymoon survival kit. Tucked inside this basket was a double deck of cards. You should have heard the hoots and howls of laughter from the married ladies in the room as they told me that we wouldn’t be needing those on our honeymoon. Little did they know how obsessed Rich and I are with playing games. Yes, we played many rounds of card games that week…
Needless to say, we are thrilled to be passing on this love of games to our children. I even wrote about the grand introduction when Xander turned 3.
- Candy Land – It makes for a perfect “first” game. I’m not really stoked on playing it over and over again, but my smooth-talking oldest implied that I looked like Princess Frostine and I’m certain that earned him another game or two…
- Chutes & Ladders – These are classic first games where kids get to learn taking turns and how to emotionally deal with set-backs. While I’m not jumping for joy to play Chutes and Ladders with the kids, I’ve found times where I can incorporate some phonogram practice into an impromptu came of Chutes and Ladders.
- Sum Swamp – This is a great game for kids who are learning to tackle basic addition and subtraction.
- Alphabet Go Fish Cards – My mother-in-law bought this game for my oldest and each of my boys have played it. They’ve learned to identify animals by name, recognize upper and lowercase letters and associate letter symbols with their sounds. It’s been one of my favorite games for developing phonemic awareness.
- Sorry – My kids love this game. It helps with making judgement calls, developing strategy and dealing {graciously} with setbacks!
- Connect Four – This game helps kids start to think ahead and map out a strategy visually in their head in order to connect four discs and win!
- Spot It – This is a wonderful game that develops matching skills and speeds perceptual abilities. It says 7+, but my friend who introduced me to this game played it with her younger daughters and my 6 year old LOVES it!
- Uno – This is a great game that strengthens number and color recognition and the start of developing strategy.
- Kanoodle – This one-person solitaire brainteaser game is great for all ages.
- Cataan Junior We’re big fans of Settlers of Cataan and were thrilled when their aunt and uncle bought them this game. It is easy enough for kids as young as 6 to play, but has enough strategy to still engage mom and dad!
To check out the whole series…
You can even see them in pamphlets and all kinds of journals.
You probably know we’re big game fans, but I discovered very quickly I can’t stand playing Candyland with my kids (or most traditional preschool games), because it always ends up being SOOOOOO long and tedious. I’m so glad we are now past the preschool game stage, and are playing some great “grown up” games with them.
Oh, I hear you Ticia. We played Candy Land with our first when he was three and were thrilled when he wanted to play with his little brothers. We’ve worked to move them on to games that we all enjoy.
Very cool. Thanks for the tips. Glad to hear there’s a Catan Junior as I’ve heard so much about the original version from so many people. Just haven’t ventured out to get it yet. Perhaps a Christmas gift for the family? Hmmm…