Playing games together as a family is a bonding experience. Children get to spend time with their parents and build learning and life skills, all while having fun.
When choosing family friendly games, it’s important to consider if the game is age-appropriate and can be played at your child’s developmental and skill levels. The following games are geared towards preschoolers and toddlers, but are fun to play for the entire family.
Roll & Play. Designed for children 18 months and up and 2 or more players, Roll & Play is the perfect first game for young families to play together. Players roll a big, plush, color sided cube and whatever color they roll, they identify and choose a coordinating card. The cards say fun things like “Moo like a cow!” or “Make a scary face”. There’s a pocket in the cube to hold the durable cards, which makes the game super portable and easy to cleanup. Roll & Play reinforces the learning of colors, shapes, sounds and emotions while teaching kids to take turns, follow rules and cheer other players on.
S’Match! Designed for children ages 4 and up and 2-6 players, S’Match! puts a spin on the classic game of memory. Players spin the S’Match! spinner and find a match based on the attribute the spinner lands on. Players can find matching shapes, colors or numbers. S’Match! boosts language development and memory skills and reinforces the learning of shapes, colors and numbers. Since the cards have both words and pictures, it’s great for readers and pre-readers alike.
Zingo! Designed for children ages 4 and up and 2-6 players, Zingo! Encourages pre-readers and early readers to match the images and words on a tile with the images and words on the Zingo! cards. The Zingo! tiles are stored and dispensed in the Zingo! Zinger. Players slide the box over and tiles are dispensed. An innovative take on Bingo, the first player who fills their card and yells Zingo! wins. Zingo! helps build children’s language development, vocabulary, memory and matching skills, all while having fun.
Snack Attack. Designed for children ages 4 and up and 2-6 players, Players use the Stack Attack Spinner to dispense food tokens which players match to the foods on their plates. The player who stacks the most food on their plate wins. Snack Attack builds memory and concentration skills, as well as teaches children to take turns and win and lose graciously. Snack Attack seamlessly mixes education and entertainment to create hours of fun.
Thank you to ThinkFun, the makers of Rush Hour and other popular mind challenging games who sent my family a box of games to review. Abby, 4, and Luke 2, enjoyed playing each of the games. Roll & Play and Zingo! are their favorites, as well as mine.
