10 Best Board Games for Preschoolers! Preschoolers (age 3-4) are at a great age for board gaming as long as you’re picking the right ones. Finding the right amount of challenge with quick turns and sturdy pieces is key! All kids develop differently, if you don’t feel your child is quite ready for these games yet, check out our list of best board games for 2 year olds, or if these sound too simple check out the list of best board games for kindergartners.
[Stephanie’s note: If the voice sounds different it’s because this post was written by Tyler, my husband, and originally published on Kidsloveboardgames.com which is now defunct!]
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Pin this round-up of family board games with this photo or link!
10 Best Board Games for Preschoolers
When you’re shopping for games, consider looking on Facebook marketplace for secondhand, buying from your local, small board game shop/toy shop, searching on Ebay, or checking Kidizen for used games. These are linked to Amazon for convenience but we’d much prefer you shop secondhand and/or small when you’re able!
Hoot Owl Hoot! by Peaceable Kingdom
Hoot Owl Hoot! is a cooperative game (similar to most Peaceable Kingdom games). Preschoolers will love the (light) decision making this game tasks them with while trying to get the owlets back to the nest. It can be tough to find a preschool board game requiring decision making that strikes with the right balance of challenging your kids without overwhelming them. Hoot Owl Hoot! hits the mark perfectly.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 4+
- What we like best: Challenging yet fast gameplay
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to evaluate simple options and make a decision
- Kids will learn: Strategic thinking, decision making, cooperation, and communication
Busy, Busy Airport Game by Wonder Forge
In Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Airport, players collect passengers and fly them to their destinations and collect cargo for points. Each player has their own airplane they can load passengers and cargo into to ‘fly’ them to and from the airport. The number of passengers who can board and destinations you can fly to is determined based on two dice each player rolls. The game also has a fun dice rolling control tower to go with the airport theme.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 3+
- What we like best: Destinations can be placed around the room to keep to get kids up and moving while playing, airplane game pieces are fun, and it’s perfect to pair with the Richard Scarry book A Day at the Airport.
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to understand simple game rules
- Kids will learn: Number recognition, simple counting and addition
Bugs in the Kitchen by Ravensburger
This game is just pure fun, not a lot to be learned, but its always a blast to play due to the complete randomness. The game consists of a bug placed in the middle of a grid of silverware, players take turns moving the silverware to try to lure the bug to their food trap, first to catch the bug 5 times wins. The bug vibrates and bounces off the silverware and moves around the board at random, often teetering on the edge of your trap only to do an about face and head toward another player. Each round goes very fast, and kids will have a blast trying to lure the bug to them.
Side note, this game is recommended for ages 6+ by the manufacturer but our preschoolers had fun with the game and had no trouble playing it the way the game was intended. This maybe due to small parts, so if your little one has trouble keeping things out of their mouth you may want to skip this one.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 6+
- What we like best: Complete randomness and silly fun
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to match picture on a die to pieces on a board
- Kids will learn: Dice concepts
Create and Tell Me a Story Cards by eeBoo
This isn’t a game in the sense of competing, but more just a fun card games for being creative together. The best part about this game is there are lots of different versions depending on your child’s interests (animals, robots, and fairy tales to name a few). Players take turns drawing cards and telling their portion of the story. Since the cards are random the story always changes into something new, fun, and silly.
- Number of players: 1+
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 3+
- What we like best: Non-competitive play, and it’s entertaining to see the preschoolers mind at work creating stories.
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to create a sentence based on a picture
- Kids will learn: Creativity, communication, story telling, connecting thoughts
How Does Your Garden Grow? by Mudpuppy
In ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’ players pick seeds for their garden and then take turns drawing cards trying to make each seed grow into a plant, and trying to avoid pests or competitors decimating their gardens as the game continues.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 4+
- What we like best: Player boards are unique with the garden growing upright, lots of swings in the leader helps everyone stay engaged
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to remember rules for 3 types of special cards and simple game instructions
- Kids will learn: Colors, beginner strategy, card game basics
Stack Up! by Peaceable Kingdom
Build the tower before the giant hand smashes it to the ground. Stack Up! has players take turns spinning the spinner and stacking blocks, but if the hand gets to the end of the track before the tower is complete, game over. This game has a nice built in mechanism to continually increase the difficulty using different stacking methods and challenge cards. This helps keeps the game fun for a large age range.
- Number of players: 2-6
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 3+
- What we like best: Cooperative game play, multiple play methods allows the game to grow with your kids
- Prerequisite skills: Dexterity to stack items and remember and follow simple game instructions
- Kids will learn: Coordination, fine motor skills
Animal Upon Animal by Haba
Stacking oddly shaped animals creates endless entertainment. Players take turns stacking animals, whoever can build the stack the highest wins. Simple game concept, but lots of challenges are created by trying to get as many animals stacked as possible. Another fast paced game that’s fun for a wide age range, and an interesting twist on the typical stacking games.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 4+
- What we like best: Unique piece shapes encourage creativity, quality wood game pieces
- Prerequisite skills: Coordination to pick up and stack animals
- Kids will learn: Coordination, fine motor skills, creativity
Brandon the Brave by Haba
I saved this one towards the end because it is probably the most complicated game on the list, I think 3-4 years olds can grasp the concept of this game, but the real strategy may take multiple games for them to pick up on it. Manufacturer age recommendation is 5+, but our kids both had fun with this game during preschool years. This build a board style game is similar to Carcassonne only much simpler, players take turns drawing pieces and fitting them onto the board, completing various ‘Knightly’ actions in the process. The first person to complete five actions is ‘Knighted’ and wins the game. Game play is fast paced and encourages older siblings helping younger find a place for their pieces and working together to get Knighted.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 5+
- What we like best: Entertaining card art, game has layers that keep it challenging as your child becomes a more sophisticated game player
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to build simple puzzles and understand strategy for placing pieces
- Kids will learn: Spatial thinking, game strategy, counting
Mystery Garden by Ravensburger
Mystery Garden is a fun twist on twenty questions. Players take turns asking questions and trying to guess which card (matching a picture on the board) another player is holding. The board art is really engaging and the and the box, board, and cards are well constructed.
- Number of players: 2-4
- Manufacturer age recommendation: 4+
- What we like best: Creates a window into the preschool brain as they try to guess your card and asks questions, one of the few games we found that really teaches questioning and communication at this age
- Prerequisite skills: Ability to form and ask questions with a goal in mind
- Kids will learn: Planning, questioning, communication
Spot it! Alphabet by Blue Orange
This is a great game for keeping energetic preschoolers engaged since the game is all about speed and not turn based. Players compete to see who can spot a matching letter or shape as fast as possible. The metal travel tin is prefect because you don’t have to worry about ending up with a smushed box.
- Number of Players: 2-6
- Manufacturer Suggested Age Range: 3+
- What we like best: Well balanced with older/younger kids because the person who ‘lost’ the last round is using the same card, while the ‘winner’ of the last round has to start fresh
- Prerequisite Skills: Ability to match shapes/letters between two cards (but kids don’t need to know them by name)
- Kids will learn: Attention span/focus, letters, shapes, and colors
Which will you try?
That’s our list of best board games for preschoolers, what games did you like best for preschool age? Comment below!
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