If you’re always on the lookout for new ways to occupy your three-year-old, board games may not be the first thing to come to mind. The truth is, there are loads of simple, fun, and interactive board games that are age-appropriate for toddlers and will help them develop important developmental skills at the same time! Here are some great board game ideas for three-year-olds (and the whole family):
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You can click on the pictures to learn more about each game.
1 ) Toddler Scavenger Hunt Cards
This is more of an unofficial board game but it will get your child up and moving through all parts of the house. Toddler Scavenger Hunt Cards are best for kids ages 2 and up. Children can work together with other kids to build teamwork and social skills while finding objects and learning what they are. Kids are encouraged to engage their senses, too, by feeling items, describing them, identifying colors, reading, singing, and more! This is a great way to sustain your child’s attention, help them express their creativity, and build independence in exploring their environment.
2) Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game
With multiple parts organized in true board game fashion, The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel will help your child build fine motor skills, work with team members, and complete tasks while on the clock. They will need to match colors, identify patterns, and use the small muscles in their fingers and hand to spin and manipulate tiny pieces. Basic colors will stimulate your child’s sensory system while strengthening their visual tracking skills.
3) Alphabet Bingo
What better way to learn your letters than by playing bingo? Your child will learn the basics of a fundamental board game, including turn-taking, sharing, verbalizing information, identifying uppercase letters and associated words, and manipulating small chips. As kids get older, this game can turn into a way for them to independently manage their game card and the pieces that they use throughout the game. Kids will learn to remain seated, sustain their attention, and collect details to complete the game.
4) Who’s In The Wild?
Children love learning about animals, which is why Who is in the wild? is a great way for them to learn all the sensory details about each animal, including how they sound, how they look, how they feel, how they smell, and how they move. Kids will be encouraged to develop their verbal articulation to describe the animals while avoiding some words on the card. Kids who are just learning to play this game may initially need some help from an adult, but their game performance will surely improve as their vocabulary grows and they learn from the others playing the game. Kids will learn turn-taking, listening to others, and paying attention to details as they get an educational experience involving animals!
5) Ladybug’s Garden Memory Game
By working with adorable ladybug game pieces, kids will engage in this garden-themed game to test their memory and attention! With a variety of game boards that can be added and taken away, Ladybug’s Garden Memory Game will enhance your child’s memory, visual tracking, pattern and shape identification and recognition, and matching skills. They will play this traditional-style board game with another child and work on turn-taking, attention, knowledge retention, fine motor skills, and organization to correctly match the right pieces together.
6) Kids on Stage
With a classic game of charades adopted to include activities that your child knows and loves, Kids on Stage Charades helps kids express themselves through movement and exercise. They will improve their gross motor skills, fine motor skills, coordination, sensory regulation, emotion expression, balance, comprehension, retention, and non-verbal methods of communication. Kids will learn about actions, activities, and objects, use some critical thinking and creativity, and bring life to some inanimate items as well as complicated motions. Children will also improve their listening skills by taking in what the other players are doing and transferring this new information to their present knowledge about common everyday actions and objects.
7) Yeti in My Spaghetti
This unique Jenga-style game really focuses on a child’s coordination, fine motor skills, judgment, planning, organization, sequencing, and much more! Children will be encouraged to work as a team to carefully remove pieces while keeping the adorable yeti seated above the bowl instead of inside of it. Kids will improve their visual skills such as scanning, depth perception, recognition, and more. This game involves turn-taking, memorization of which pieces will cause the yeti to fall, timing, slow and rhythmic movements, and (above all else) patience! This is a great game option for those kids who can’t sit still because they need to be calm and collected before attempting to remove each nood
8) Sequence for Kids
This picture-only board game is a modified spin on the standard Sequence game that we all know and love. Kids will view pictures on cards they draw, navigate their game board to find any matches that exist, and place their chip on top to indicate they made a pair. The first one to get four chips in a row wins, so this game will address strategy, critical thinking, pattern recognition, fine motor skills, attention, turn-taking, and social skills. Parents can easily add a more interactive component to this game by having their child act out the animals as they see them. Additional portions can focus on anything from creativity to verbal and non-verbal communication and expression to gross motor coordination and movement.
There are many board games that offer fun, engaging ways to build your child’s skills while teaching them how to interact with others in recreational activities. Many board games offer a three-fold focus on the strength, coordination, and motion of upper and lower body, while testing memory and attention, and enhancing social skills like reciprocity, turn-taking, and verbal expression. Take a look at some of these options and let us know what you think!