Best Board Games for Kids

Having children play board games instead of being exposed to digital screens is helpful. Most kids use their mobile devices, laptops, and other electronic gadgets to play video games. Playing board games that encourage strategic thinking and problem-solving might be a great alternative to video games and the internet for your children. Children learn the value of teamwork, turn-taking, and patience via playing board games.

One of the finest ways to boost memory and other cognitive capacities is to spend time with loved ones while playing a board game. Some board games encourage physical activity, so you may feel good about letting your kids play them. Several kid-friendly board games may be played with a group of people of any age.

Snakes and Ladders

The board game Snakes and Ladders is a timeless classic that kids worldwide love to play. By associating the written symbol with the value they comprehend in their minds, kids can identify the numbers they hear and talk about in daily life through the game of snakes and ladders. Counting procedures, such as mentally adding or subtracting one, or counting on fingers to get to the following number, are also taught to children as a foundation for addition and subtraction.

How does this game work? Each player will roll a die before play begins; the player with the highest total will go first. Starting at 1, players will move their pieces from left to right, following the board’s numbered rows, before moving the next row’s pieces from right to left.

The player’s piece will slide to the snake’s base when it lands on its head. If a player lands down at the bottom of the ladder, they will quickly ascend to the top. To win, be the first player to move to spot 100 on the game board. To win, the player must roll the precise number that will take you to the last square. If a player rolls a number greater than 100, their piece will remain stationary until it is their turn again.

Hand-drawn game Snakes and Ladders. Close-up

Connect 4

This is a board game for two people, and everyone plays one of two colors. Players take turns tossing the numbered discs onto a vertical grill with seven rows and six columns to get points. In a vertical column, the discs will always land at the bottom. In this board game, the primary goal is to be the first to complete a line in any direction (diagonal, vertical, or horizontal) with four of your discs.

Both learning and playing the game are simple tasks. A correct move results in a victory, much like in tic-tac-toe. This is the kind of game your children will want to play again and again. It’s a fun and quick game you may enjoy with your kids before returning to doing house chores or work-related things.

Monkey Around

When kids need an outlet for their foolishness, the “Monkey Around” game is perfect. It’s ideal for children who would instead move around than sit still and focus on a traditional board game. Your child may simply pick a card randomly from the pile of 40 and act as directed. Solo activities, such as backflipping or holding a banana bean bag on your head, can serve as objectives and tasks.

Joint activities may include building a structure for others to crawl under or exchanging high fives. Still, they may also involve various types of work. Your child will place the finished card on the board before moving on to the next one. When the player’s board is completely full, they win. Take turns with the cards and discover how quickly the board fills up if you decide to play.

It’s an excellent, easy game that will appeal to kids aged 2 and 3, who would rather play it themselves than watch their older siblings or parents do it.

Smart Farmer

Playing Smart Farmer can help you sharpen your mind. All the animals in this game are causing quite a ruckus. However, the farmer has only three crude fences to keep them apart on the land. The field will be sectioned off into individual pastures using these three fences. This is a challenging board game to play by yourself because of the complex configurations required. There are watering troughs and various livestock, such as cows, sheep, horses, and pigs.

The game’s objective is to construct enclosures for the various animals, one for each type. There are dozens of options for animal housing and feed-trough layouts in the game’s manual. Some countless patterns and combos may arise from playing with your kids. This board game is appropriate for players aged 5 and above.

Battleship

The two-player board game Battleship aims to locate and destroy the enemy fleet by determining its position. The controls and game flow are both intuitive. For this game, players cover their vessels with a plastic grid depicting coordinates in the x and y axes of space. A common strategy in this game is for players to take turns speaking out the row and column numbers of a square on the opponent’s grid to pinpoint the exact location of a ship.

There are two grids, one on top and one below, on the game board each player receives. The player can “hide” their ships’ whereabouts in the bottom grid while recording his shots at the opponent and keeping track of whether or not they struck in the top grid.

Place your ships strategically on the ocean grid to withstand your opponent’s unrelenting attacks. Keep track of their successes and failures by moving the red and white pegs about the board. In this game of stealth and suspense, no ship is safe. Enjoyable for children aged 7 and up, it may be taken anywhere as an indoor activity.

First Orchard

It’s an excellent choice for a cooperative game for toddlers. The game is played according to straightforward rules. All of the players collaborate to pick the fruit from the orchard tree. Each player must race the raven to the orchard and steal the fruit before losing the game. Following the rules and being patient while waiting for your turn are the lessons to be learned from this board game.

This board game teaches kids more than just how to count and match colors; it also helps them develop foundational abilities like these. The rules are so elementary that even a youngster of two or three can understand and follow them. The game lasts between 5 and 10 minutes, during which all players actively participate. Kids are drawn to this board game by the cute picnic basket and wooden fruit.

Jenga

The physical skill game Jenga was developed by British game designer and author Leslie Scott and popularized by toy manufacturer Hasbro. A tower of 54 blocks is gradually depleted as players take turns removing individual blocks. The tower becomes increasingly precarious when blocks are taken out and stacked atop one another.

The blocks are arranged in a tower of 18 levels, each consisting of three blocks. Each layer’s blocks are aligned, their long sides meeting and perpendicular to the layer below them. The game’s plastic tray can be utilized for assembly.

A player’s turn begins when the tower’s builder removes one block from any level below the highest finished level and places it perpendicular to any resting block at the top of the tower.  The game is over if the tower falls because a block was taken out or moved. The winner is the one whose turn is completed before the building is destroyed.

Constructing a Jenga tower can aid in a child’s growth by stimulating the development of physical ability, hand-eye coordination, and poise. It has benefited kids in various ways, including their ability to work together on projects, their interest in learning, and their grasp of math, science, and the arts.

Above view of cute youthful girl looking at tower while playing with her mother

Scrabble

As the pinnacle of crossword games, Scrabble requires you to use every letter in your inventory. Gather your loved ones and take turns making words on the board. After each turn, tally up the points of each letter in each new word you created. Bear in mind that there are points added for using premium squares to write your letters.

Playing Scrabble is a surefire way to help kids learn proper spelling. As a result, many educators advocate for parents to engage in Scrabble with their children, especially those who struggle with spelling. Playing the game is an excellent opportunity to show kids how to spell words correctly.

The kids may utilize their ideas and come up with new terms while playing the fantastic game of Scrabble. To win the game and accumulate more points than the other players, they will need to come up with fun and original words that still need to be added to the board. 

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If your kids spend too many hours playing video games or watching TV, it may be time to introduce them to board games. Parents can help their children develop their cognitive skills by playing board games with them. Many board games have goals that require players to physically move pieces across the board, and others need players to use strategy to come out on top. You may also use games as a teaching tool for your children. Therefore, not only do young children enjoy playing board games but so do older people.