Board game suggestions for a 4 year old.

Hi all,

I'm after some board game ideas to play with DD who is almost 4. We play Snap, Trouble and Memory games.

I'd love some more suggestions, as she loves playing board games. :)

Thanks.

Guess who? and Connect 4 are hits here - rules are very fluid tho!

Snakes and ladders, tiddlewinks, fishing games, hungry hippos, pop up pirates...

Guess Who ( or the $10 version from Big W, Who's Who? ;))
Elephun
Kerplunk
Dominoes
Connect 4

Can I just ask about a 4yo's reading skills? Cos I couldn't play "Guess Who" with Liebling as "Are you Fred?" would have him completely stumped. Well, Fred may be OK but Olivia wouldn't be.

UNO is great.

I 2nd UNO - great maths and colour skills. There's one at work we have called snails pace and you can get a board game that goes with The Very Hungry Caterpillar which is good too.

DS1 loves
Trouble
my first operation
and matching games

For christmas kids are getting:
Uno Moo
Very hungry caterpillers

Can I be a bit obscure and suggest the brand Orchard Toys? My toy library has heaps of them and they are fantastic developmental games for kids. They are available online or in the fundraising catalogues around for kinders etc.

TFB - I started playing with C when she was 3. Once we get to the last person, to begin with we would just compare and see. As she got older, I would ask her what the first letter of the name was and find out that way.
Works fine. TBH she has more trouble with the notion of "yes or no questions"! LOL

Beetle
The shopping list game
Tummy ache

Junior Monopoly, bingo, snakes & ladders , UNO, trouble, connect 4 & Guess Who. DS1 is in love with Monopoly at the minute. For the last 18mths he has been asking to play the adult version. It's very good for addition & subtraction especially when he runs out of the actual notes & has to put multiple notes together to buy a property or pay up.
With Guess Who it's more the questions DS has trouble with & understanding he has to knock down the opposite to the answer lol. He also likes to keep his person standing up as well as the one he's trying to guess.

I cant remember how old I was when Mum introduced us to Sorry! But we had great fun with that. Object is to get the little colored pieces into the goal. It has cards with numbers and instructions for what each number means ie 4 = go backwards. You could ignore the instructions though if it's too complicated and just use the numbers.

We also had Junior Scrabble. One side of the board has the words marked out and the kids just have to match up the letters on their tray with the ones on the board - the other side is a smaller (but bigger squares) version of normal scrabble.

LOVED Tiddlywinks

Zingo. Sold through learning ladder and is like bingo except its pictures with the word underneath. Kids as little as 2 can play so it can be a whole family game. Amazing how competitive people )adults ;)) can get with it! Lol

Dd also loves snakes and ladders.

DD1 loves games too. Junior Monopoly is her favourite but she also loved the Lego sheep game, Don't Panic for Kids, The Beetle game and Cluedo Junior at that age. Though Cluedo is much easier and less frustrating for me now that she's older. She also loves simple card games.

Do you know how many hours and tantrums we've had over Lego's Shave a Sheep? Let alone the internal issues being projected onto that poor wolf. DS can't cope with not winning too well, so snakes and ladders is better as it is a bit random. Shave a Sheep requires a bit of tactics to win and, while Liebs is up with tactics, his parents aren't allowed to be. But all the lego games are fun, we also have the beach one and the frog one.

Learning how to lose is important too.

Air hockey is also loved here.

Haha TFB, obviously my tactics aren't winning ones...cos I never do.

Thanks so much for all these great ideas! I would have thought though that some of these suggestions would be too hard for a just turned 4 year old? Like Uno and Guess Who?

What do you do in Junior Monopoly?

But I am still clueless when it comes to relising what she can and can't do and I am constantly surprised at how capable she is at this age, so maybe they aren't too hard. :lol:

Junior monopoly is a similar premise to the adult one with simplified rules. It is based on amusement park rides and attractions. Buying and paying to use. She wouldn't be able to work out the sums herself but DS plays with DD1 and I (and he's 3.5) and we just work it out for him. We ask him what he wants to do and if he wants to buy it. He loves it. There's also one with an ATM but that's a bit more complex, though DD1 was able to play at 5.