Simple Question About Games

My three year old loves to play Uno. She has a hard time holding the cards so she puts them face-up behind her. I love that she is learning her numbers! Also- Creative Kidstuff has a Diggity Dog game that is great too-

How about Chutes and Ladders? Hi-Ho Cheery O? How about a memory game? Just a few suggestions. Hope this helps.

K.

I highly recommend Cariboo for that age. My son loved it and it was more interesting to him at that age than moving a piece along a board. Because you use a "key" to open a little trap door on each turn it was an easy way to teach the concept of taking turns (i.e. when you have the key it is your turn). It teaches colors, shapes, ABC, and counting (I sometimes had to help my son with the counting at 2.5yo). There is no "winner" in this game, you are working together to find the treasure.

From this game we moved on to Candyland and Hullabaloo. The Snail Pace Race is another short cooperative game. My son is a game fanatic! So at 3.5, we added "Hungry, Hungry Hippos", "The Ladybug Game" (I bought this on drugstore.com and it is a big hit), "Junior Monopoly", and "Travel Blockus."

It is very typical at this age for them to want to play and then get bored in the middle or want to experiment with the rules.

Our daughter likes Break the Ice. She also likes hopscotch. She does not follow the rules exactly, but likes drawing out the squares, throwing a "rock", and hop. We have tile and hardwood floors so we use chalk or crayola' bathtub crayons both wipe clean. On carpet you can use tape or yarn.

Hi-ho Cherry O is great. It teaches early math and counting skills. There are a number of games from Discovrey Toys that are wonderful as well. If you go online you would probably find a bunch. The one I am thinking of specifically is called Roll and Play. There is also another good one by Fisher Price called Go Fish. That is good for matching and color recognition, but much quicker than Candy Land.

I was also going to suggest Cariboo - but there are other Cranium games for the toddler/preschool set as well that you might want to check out. My son *adores* them!

We also play with flashcards and other memory type games. And there was another board game that my son has played with his sisters that I'll have to go look up when I get home as I've just forgotten what the name is.

Try Cariboo made by Cranium. It is available at Target. My son loved it. In general, Cranium makes great games. You might also want to grab a Discovery Toy catalog from someone or browse on line at Discoverytoysinc.com. They have great games and toys for a variety of ages. My son also really enjoyed a lot of the simple, classic MB games--Cootie, Don't Break the Ice. I found them kind of mindless, but he loved them and still breaks them out periodically at age 8.

My two boys (4 & 2) like dominoes. We started with a Dora set with just pictures. Sequence with animals is good too. Both of these have numbers additions that they can move onto and continue to play into adulthood.
We do A LOT of puzzles! They we're not as interested in the hard board puzzles but once we brought out the Dora, spiderman, cars, and planets puzzles - they will work together and separately on puzzles.
The game Zingo (from Discovery Toys) is good too. It's got simple drawings and words on them. It's got a fun contraption that releases the next two words/pic with each turn. We play it as a family.
Others we have - Hungry Hippo, Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Hullabloo, several Memory games, Hi Ho Cherrio, and Barrel of Monkeys.
I hope to maintain the interest in family games as our kids get older. My parents, siblings and I still love to play games when we get together. A family that plays together - has lots of fun!!

Which candy land do you have? If you have the original then i can see her having a harder time. My mother-in-law gave our daughter a candy land game that has 4 gingerbread men that you match games pieces against. It happens to be one that has really helped her along getting to know her shapes and colors consistently as well as learning to take turns. We mix up the game just a little bit so that she doesn't loose interest in it, which you can do with any game. One other game that she loves to play can be found at wal-mart. It is counting bears. five different colored bears and matching cups. What we do is let her put the colored bears in the corresponding cup, she loves this. I hope this helps.

We started with the Memory game with I Spy picture cards. We also started smal...using 4 cards, then 6, then 8 and so on. We also took our turns...and of course, we made it look like we were trying too. Never really kept score, infact our daughter would get a pair and give it to us for fun. And, when we would get a pair, we'd give it to her, etc. Make it fun, and challenging and make sure they don't always win. They have to know that losing is part of a game and will learn not to be a sore loser.

we got candyland castle game for our 2 1/2 and she likes that...this age is kind of young to sit through a whole game, so remember even if she wont sit through a whole game or play multiple times, she is learning to take turns and the concept of winning and loosing. games also helps with fine motor skills when they are picking up the cards or small pieces. she also likes to play connect four and the memory games....even if she doesnt really get the game she like putting the pieces in or flipping the cards. the nice thing about memory is is that you can use just a few cards at a time.

My kids loved Cariboo by Cranium when they were your daughter's age. It is all about matching, color, counting and opening the treasure chest. We could have played it for hours. It comes with two sets of card: one for younger and one for older kids.

A definate must on my list.
L.
Mom to Gentry and Ainsley 11/03

Cariboo is a great game made by Cranium that you can make new pictures for to change as your child grows. We use it in my classroom. They take cards and match pictures where you open boxes with a key looking for balls inside that you use to open a treasure box at the end. I sometimes put stickers in the treasure box for fun and make new cards with my computer to change it for different themes and skills.

My son is 2 and he loves Puppy Racers and the simple counting bears with cups that help him with colors, sorting, counting, and problem solving.

T.,
My daughter will be 3 in April and she loves to play Zingo and Hi-Ho-Cherrio.

Hi Theresa,

One game my 3 year old daughter really likes is the Tea Party Game. It's very simple - there's a real "tablecloth" and you take turns spinning for items you need to have a tea party (cakes, sandwiches, tea cups, etc.). I bought our game at Creative Kidstuff store in Edina but I saw it cheaper on Amazon.com. We played it at her princess birthday party and all the girls really enjoyed it.

S.

Hi T.,
The responses you've gotten are great (and a big help to me too - I've got a 3 year old and will be looking for some of these games). There's one that my daughter enjoyed when she was two and we still play with it. It's called Animal Bingo. We found it at the museum gift shop at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, but I'm sure it's available elsewhere. Similar to many of the games suggested, it matches pairs of animals. It's also great for communication - getting the kids to recognize the different types of animals.
Happy hunting!

We play the Memory Game with my son. It comes with a lot of cards but we divide the cards up in the tray and only take one little set at a time. He likes the smaller card set better and if he wants to keep playing we use another stack. Also he loves Hungry Hungry Hippos. We also play Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders.