I am always looking for more ways to spend quality time and to connect with my children that encourages healthy activity and create bonding moments and memories that they can treasure throughout their lives. But as it’s gotten colder, and the weather hasn’t been nice enough for park days, I’ve been trying to think of other ways to spend quality time with my children and healthy, educational ways to spend some of our time in the longer evenings. Playing games is a great way to do that and there are some pretty amazing board games for 4 year olds out there.
Board Games for 4 year olds
There are tons of ways to spend quality time with your four year old. Kids at that age love anything that provides quality, undivided time with their parents. And family game night is an amazing way to have fun together and create amazing memories and laughs.
I’ve been wanting to start incorporating more games into our family time, but I keep asking myself what board games should I play with my 4 year old? Because if your child is like mine, there are a lot of great games out there that won’t be possible to play well with a four year old’s attention span, logic abilities, and energy levels. The good news is that there are a LOT of amazing board games for four year old kids that have been created with their developmental stages and learning skills in mind that are still a lot of fun to play together as a family. In fact, when I was doing my research, I ended up adding around 25 new games to my wishlists on Amazon. (Psst, games make fantastic gifts for four year olds!)
So what are the best preschool board games? I’ve picked the board games for 4 year olds in this article based on these criteria:
- Games that help build good fine motor skills and hand eye coordination.
- Games that encourage teamwork, in which players work together to complete a task or reach goals.
- Games that help with memory, math and other learning skills
- Family games that provide an opportunity to bond and create good memories.
Board Games for four year olds that build fine motor skills
1. Sneaky snacky squirrel game
This game has been one of the top recommended games for preschool children for a long time–and for good reasons! It makes a great game for your four year old because it is easy to understand and play, and makes learning fun and exciting. Using the little snacky squirrel squeezer to pick up acorns develops coordination, and the gameplay helps with matching, color recognition, and strategic thinking. Super fun family game for young children!
Why are playing board games important for kids?
Experts say games for 4 year olds at home is an important opportunity for kids and for parents. They provide the perfect scenario in which you can teach important educational and social skills in a way that gives them practical, hands-on learning experiences that are fun at the same time. In fact, these are ten important reasons why board games for 4 year olds are a great investment for you and your family!
- Teamwork: Being able to work as a team player is a life skill that your child will need as they grow and face new environments. Games are a great way to practice this and work on the skills that make people want you on their team!
- Thinking ahead/Critical thinking: It is never too soon to start developing the skills needed to plan ahead and make wise choices. Games are the perfect segway into crucial critical thinking skills because when your child needs to play with even a simple strategy to plan moves ahead in the game, it helps them to build the ability to make a plan and modify it to reach their goals.
- Math and Language Skill: Even if your child doesn’t read yet, there are so many great opportunities to increase word recognition, vocabulary and of course, math skills when you play games together. Learning to count the numbers on a dice, move ahead or backwards is the perfect springboard to introduce not just counting but addition and subtraction in a hands-on way that helps your child connect the action to a concept that can feel abstract and difficult.
- Taking turns: Taking turns is hard for 4 year old kids. But learning to wait and let others make their moves as you work around the gameboard is a great way to help develop patience and understanding on how to be a good team player before they are in a lot of social situations where this is necessary.
- Following directions: For my kids this is another big one. It’s so hard to turn on the listening ears and follow instructions when they are so excited about the pieces. Playing through a game according to the directions helps them learn to follow through with simple instructions even if they don’t initially want to.
- Actions and Consequences: Games are one of THE BEST WAYS I have found to help my four year old understand how her actions can cause a reward or consequence depending. It’s such an abstract thought for little brains, so being able to see it play out and grasp how it happens on a game board has given us something to relate to when our day to day actions cause sometimes undesirable consequences.
- Creating non-screen time hobbies: we live in a very tech centered world. This is not all bad but it is healthy and important to develop hobbies for children and as a family that take us away from the screens and let us use a different part of our brains. Non-screen time can give us a chance to teach social skills and values that we would miss being able to do without that one-on-one investment!
- Being a good sport: No one likes to lose. But life is filled with as many losses as it has wins, so it’s important to know how to lose gracefully. Family game night is a great opportunity to teach the proper way to win and lose with a good spirit.
- Social skills: Four year olds are just on the edge of school and social skills can be a challenge. Playing and interacting with each other lets us parents get a chance to work with our kids on little (or big) skills that will make their social life so much easier as they enter the school age era.
- Fun and bonding Time as a family: there is nothing like laughing together over a gameboard. My kids light up on game night. We get to talk about things that are important to them. We learn something together. They get to be better than me once in a while. And we just all love it. These are the memories that they’ll take with them for years to come, and we all want to make the most of them!
In closing, picking out a few new games for you and your kids to enjoy together is a winning choice that will reward you in quality time, educational opportunities, and just a lot of good laughs with the people you love. What could be better than that?
Need more gift inspiration? Check out my gift guides for all ages!