Board games can be fun, educational and can promote family bonding. They are a perfect medium for parents to communicate with the children. Irrespective of the weather, board games are a great option: Whether it’s stormy outside or it’s a cold dark winter night or a summer vacation when you are just too bored to head outside; bring out your board game and you’d be good to go.
Apart from the great family bonding they provide, board games also help you to think strategically. Something as simple as reading and discussing the rules and the manual can help children learn vocabulary and serve as a grammar lesson. In a game, you will have to thoughtfully plan your moves, whether you are playing in a team or competing individually since you need to achieve an objective. They also help to solidify relationship with the parents. Kids also learn values like patience, sharing and team work since a lot of children face issues like possessiveness and no-sharing attitude.
Below is a list of board games which are oodles of fun to play with your children. They will also help toddlers practice key skills that will be helpful for kindergarten and pre-readers.
1. Animal families and their homes:
It is an innovative game to learn about domestic and wild animals by matching pictures of their babies and homes and also understanding why their homes are different from ours. You have to match animal cards to their corresponding home cards and check the answers yourself. It helps to build classroom skills.
2. Zingo:
Zingo sounds like Bingo and was inspired by it. It is one of those board games which the parents and children would love to play. It is a matching game for pre-readers where the players have to fill their Zingo! cards with matching tiles from the Zingo! “Zinger” which is a tile dispenser. Whoever fills the card first, yells ‘Zingo!’. The matching game builds language skills through fast-paced play since the child learns new words from the tiles. The pictures have simple things like house, dog, cake, bunny, etc. which the kids are familiar with and are able to recognize immediately, which is important in this game. This game helps improve reading and spelling. Some parents also find it useful for speech therapy.
3. Boggle Junior:
This is a perfect game to improve spelling, memory, matching and, letter and word recognition. This should be the first game for preschoolers as the kids learn ABCs with different ways to play. The game has six sided letter cubes and various picture cards that have a picture and the corresponding word on the them. The child has to place the card on the tray and use 3-4 cubes to match the spelling. It is a very enjoyable game for preschoolers / Kindergartner’s as the kids can learn while having some fun.
4. Roll & Play:
This was the first toddler game that was ever designed and it has received multiple awards for the same since then. It is a very interactive game that can help the child develop social skills, learn colors and numbers, improve language skills, etc. It also encourages creativity, role play and gross motor skills. Each player has to roll the big plush multi-color dice, then select the card with the matching color, and on the basis of that you have to act out the activity that is shown / written on the card. It can also serve as a great ice breaking game if played with young kids.
5. Candy Land:
It is a classic board game for 3-6 year olds. Every kid gets fascinated by fun candy characters and colorful visual appeal, and this is what the kids love about this game. The players get to encounter the most delicious surprises on the race to the Candy castle. The kids and parents can bond over this super awesome game which can teach basic skills like learning to follow directions and, recognize and learn different colors.