For the last few years now, one of my favorite ways to spend quality time with Maggie is by playing games. She loves it, I love it and she gets to learn so much. While her current favorite game varies by day, you can bet we will be busting out the games almost daily. I thought it would be fun to share with you some of our favorite picks for games for kindergartners. I love that we are having a blast together and that we can integrate many of the games as part of our homeschool plan.
Games are a great way to teach kids skills like taking turns, good sportsmanship, and so much more. I pretty much never let her win at games. For the past 2+ years, we have been playing and she is always just as happy when I win as she is when she wins, although sometimes she starts to get frustrated. Now, I play a modified game style to give her a better chance and that style will vary depending on her skill level at a certain game. When we play things like Go Fish, I go in alphabetical order on what I ask for since she sometimes has her cards laid out to see them better.
I have put a lot of thought into what games to include on this list. Since every child is different, some games on this list will be better suited for some kids than others.
- Sequence for Kids – This is one of our personal favorites and probably the game we play the most.
- Go Fish
- Memory
- Candy Land
- Hi-Ho Cherry-O
- Zingo – Maggie received this game for Christmas and we love to play it AND she loves to play it with her friends.
- Sequence Letters
- Zingo Sight Words
- Take 10
- Quirkle
- Trouble
- Pie in the Face – This game is so great for a laugh!
- Guess Who – We just played this for the first time tonight and even my three year old loved it.
- Operation
- Scrabble Junior – I have the Disney version and I really like it because it has the words already spelled out and you have to add the letters in a row. As they get older, you can flip the board over and it looks like a regular Scrabble board.
- Connect 4
- Sorry – This is my favorite game from childhood. We finally played today and it was so much fun.
- Blokus – I seriously LOVE this game. Our family use to have a Blokus tournament.
- Zingo Word Builder – Building on Zingo and the child’s ability to make words, players grab a letter as it comes out and try to create three letter words one letter at a time.
- UNO
- Monopoly Junior
- Charades for Kids – If you are looking for a fun family game, this is my top pick. Even my three year old is able to play…..there are pictures on some of the cards for non-readers to know what to act out. He sees the picture, shouts out the answer, giggles uncontrollably and eventually acts it out. It is so much fun! But my five year old was able to act out the clues very creatively and we all had so much fun.
- Checkers
- Kerplunk
- Twister
- The Game of Life Junior
- Cootie
- Mancala
- Chutes and Ladders
- Yahtzee Junior – We have a princess version which we absolutely love to play.
- Silly Sentences While calling this a game might be a stretch, my five year old loves it. It’s a great way for them to learn sentence structure, work on reading and just have fun. See – a game.
- Chinese Checkers
- Robot Turtles
- Spot It
- Jenga
- Chess
- Dominoes
- Cranium Cariboo
- Cranium Hullabaloo
- Cranium Balloon Lagoon
- Hangman
- Hoot Owl Hoot
- Mental Blox I don’t know that is technically qualifies as a board game but I’m including it anyways. I think of it as a math; logical thinking game but mostly, it is just fun!
- Bingo
- Animal Mastermind Towers
- I Spy Ready to Read
- SET Junior
- Hungry Hungry Hippo
- Perfection
- Imagination Generation Story Time Dice
- Camelot Jr.
- High Seas ADDventure
We haven’t played all of these games but I know there are a bunch more on the list that I cannot wait to get. Games are such a great way to connect with kids and an opportunity for them to learn so many things. What are some of your favorite games? Did they make this list? If not, leave me a comment and let me know what I missed.
