A list of the best board games for 4 year olds and 5 year olds! These 10 board games will encourage thinking in your preschooler, while also making for a fun family game night!
Are you looking for the best games for 4 year olds? You’re in the right place! (These will also work if you have a 3 or a 5 year old, too! Basically any kiddo in that preschool age range.)
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The Best Board Games For Your Preschooler (Ages 3-5)
Although preschoolers are young and still developing a lot of skills, board games can be a great addition to their play time.
There are a lot of great board games for preschoolers out there, but it can be hard to figure out which ones are worth buying and which aren’t. If you’re looking for some good educational board games for your toddler or preschooler, then check this list out! We’ve got all the info you need to find the perfect game.
Our list has all of our top pics and we’ll tell you why each one is great. You’ll also learn about how these games can improve language skills, fine motor control, problem-solving abilities and more! There’s no reason not to buy at least one of these great board games as a gift or as something fun for your family. Your child will love playing with them every day!
The Benefits of Playing Board Games With Your Child
Board games are a great way to spend time with your kids and connect through playing. The benefits don’t end once they can move off of the learning toys. There are some awesome board games out there that you’ll all enjoy playing together!
When you begin playing board games with your child at an early age, you’ll be creating a foundation of communication, teamwork and critical thinking to last them for the rest of their lives hopefully. And the best part is that these games will provide hours of entertainment for everyone involved!
Board games are great for kids because they help with so many different skills through playing. Games can help develop number recognition and pattern recognition skills. They also begin to learn how turns work and what consequences come about through losing. Many games will improve your preschooler’s memory, language skills and problem-solving abilities too.
We’ve gathered up some of our favorite educational board games that are perfect for helping kids develop these many skills. There are different genres suitable to every preference so you’re bound to find something that you’ll both enjoy!
We’ve picked out 11 awesome options based on how fun they are, what skills they help develop and their ease of use so let’s take a look at some of our favorite board games for preschoolers!
The Best Board Games for 4 Year Olds (Preschoolers)
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Spot it Jr
This is the simplified version of the adult version of Spot It, but this can help teach size and spatial recognition as well as motor skills. This game may need to be played with an adult to act as a buffer to help keep game play slow. Otherwise, bigger or older kids might run all over the younger ones and cause frustration.
Spot It Jr. has a lot of different variations and ways to play, which is really fun. It’s made up of 31 cards containing things animals in different sizes. The goal is to find something on your card that matches the one in the center pile and get rid of all of your cards first. It can be really fast paced, which is why we recommend having someone older involved to try to help dispel arguments or the older ones running all over your 4 year old.
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Matching +
A wooden matching game, this works on shapes and colors for your preschooler. This is a great memory game for kids and it’s really simple to play. Just try to match shapes and colors from the cards that you’re drawing from the pile!
This game works on recognition of numbers, color matching and fine motor skills. Imaging using a cookie cutter to cut out a shape and then trying to put that shape back into the hole made by said cookie cutter. That’s what this game is! A toddler of any cognitive developmental level would love this.
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Yeti In My Spaghetti
When I was younger, I had a game like this called Kerplunk and loved it. Yeti in my Spaghetti is really good at teaching your toddler the very important life skill of slowing down. The best part about this game is it is super fast to set up, easy to learn, fun to play, and only takes about 5 minutes, so it doesn’t make your toddler lose interest in the game.
The goal is to slowly pull pieces of spaghetti and keep the yeti out of your bowl and the person who pulls the piece of spaghetti that makes the yeti drop is the loser. This game encourages patience because you have to endure the process of slowly pulling out spaghetti until it’s just right to keep the yeti out of the bowl.
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Hoot Owl Hoot!
An award winning game for kids, Hoot Owl Hoot is a great board game for preschoolers! Two to four players work together to shift owls from to their nest before sunrise.
Hoot Owl Hoot is a great cooperative game. Everyone wins or loses as a group, so everyone is involved all the time! If you have little ones who may not play well together or if your kiddos are super competitive, this is a great team building skill game.
If your toddler isn’t reading, there’s no words they need to worry about having to read on the game board either, which is a huge plus!
I would say Hoot Owl Hoot is a great game for building skills of not only team building but empathy because this is about how to work together for a common goal dnf rothe common good, not against each other. Lots of lessons can be had playing this great game! Worth every single penny!
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Osmo Detective Agency
While this is a bit more expensive because this is just an expansion pack to the Osmo game set for an iPad or Fire Tablet, this is by far one of the coolest addition packs to the Osmo game set.
Detective Agency requires the player to use a small magnifying glass to “travel” around the world and find clues to help solve certain cases.
Think “I Spy” but using a magnifying glass that attaches to your iPad. We have this one at home and it’s amazing. I will say if your 4 year old isn’t reading yet, this may be a struggle, but you can totally be near to help or calm any frustrations.
This game definitely works on the skills of critical thinking and observation skills. There are no rules to the game, so it encourages creativity too.
CHECK THE PRICE OF OSMO DETECTIVE AGENCY
Hi Ho! Cherry-O
A classic game, Hi Ho! Cherry-O is a great game that works on numbers and counting. Since you need to pick the cherries off the tree and add them to the bucket, it also works on their fine motor skills.
The goal is to get all your color cherries from your tree into your bucket without turning them all over.
For toddlers and younger children, numbers are a major part of their everyday lives. They learn to count and perform simple math operations like addition and subtraction while playing this game while having fun. The best part is they don’t even realize it!
Sometimes playing a board game with a 4 year old can be a challenge. This is why Hi Ho! Cherry-O works perfectly for that age group since the gameplay is simple and fun!
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Uno Moo!
This cute little game can introduce your 4 year old to the fun game of Uno! A twist on the original game, the point of Uno Moo! is to get all your animals home before your opponents! Not only a fun game to play, but a great tool for learning colors and numbers. This will help hone some of those quick thinking skills too much like Spot It does.
Uno Moo! is a great game for also working on animals and the sounds they make! The cards have cows, pigs, skunks, chickens or dogs on them and I’m not sure what sound a skunk makes, but you can make it fun! 4 year olds typically love all things funny and smelly.
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Alphabet Bingo
This is a twist on classic Bingo by adding letters. Having your 4 year old play this Alphabet Bingo board game will assist them in letter recognition and help them work on things like reading or vocabulary that will be coming very soon for them in the next year as they enter kindergarten.
This is a great game for preschoolers to play on their own or with mom or dad because there’s very little reading involved, allowing them to develop those fine motor skills!
Alphabet Bingo can be a fun family game is a lot of fun to play! You’ll recognize all the letters from your name on the game board. Bingo is an easy game for this age group.
The great thing about learning games like this one is they’re learning skills, but don’t think they’re even learning because all they recognize is the fun.
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Red Light Green Light
Another great game from Chuckle and Roar is Red Light Green Light. This game comes with cards with red lights and green lights. The point is to flip as many green lights as you can to move down the board (which is a street). Your preschooler can even learn a little about traffic light safety too as an added bonus!
This is a great game that can have you and your 4 year old laughing as they shout out, “Red Light” or “Green Light”. Something else I love about this board game is it’s not just for 4 year olds. Your older kids will love playing with their younger siblings because the rules are simple and it’s a great way to bond over something they all love.
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Shopping List
Finally, we have Shopping List. While this does require a little bit of reading, it’s a great way to get your child ready for reading by practicing letter recognition and matching the pictures with their words. You can review letters and sounds while you play, making this a learning game. This is not only a fun way to learn, but a fun way to make mom or dad happy by going grocery shopping with you!
This is an awesome board game that will help ease them into pre-reading skills. This is also a great game to test their memory, as this is a matching game! Your preschooler will love this game and gathering the groceries to put in their shopping cart or basket!
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How To Store Family Board Games Properly So They Last a Long Time
Storing games can be difficult, depending on your situation. If you have a big family and many kids, you may want to consider investing in some large tubs or storage containers that will hold several games at once and keep them organized.
We actually really like these zipper pouches from Amazon that come in different sizes and we take the games out of their boxes and just store the pieces with the instructions in a zipper bag. It’s a great space saver.
When it comes time to put away the board games for 4-year-old babes, don’t just throw them all into one big box. Separate the different types of games into groups. For example, if you have Uno Moo!, Alphabet Bingo, Red Light Green Light, and Shopping List all in one box, your preschoolers won’t know where to find what they want.
Instead of having them dig around for games that are all mixed up together, go through the set of board games and separate them into categories. Group them by counting games, alphabet games, memory/reading games, etc.
Once you have your groups separated out by board game type, store each set of games together in a large tote or storage container, but make sure you label them because having them in separate boxes does nothing if you don’t know what’s in them! This way everything is organized and easy to find when you want to play them.
So, if you’re a parent and don’t have any board games for your preschooler at home – I hope this list has inspired you to go out and buy some! What’s more important than teaching our kids skills they need to be successful in school in their future years?
Now that you know all about the best board games for preschoolers, go out and enjoy playing with your kiddos!
