Board Games Grandparents Need to Have on Hand

There is a Facebook group in our area that I am having such fun following. It's one of those mom-to-mom groups and they offer some wonderful ideas of things to do with your kiddos. They also tell all when it comes to recommendations for doctors/dentists, stores, restaurants, and the like. Most of the time you'll get positive comments but when they aren't, these moms back it up with details. I like that. It makes it easier to know whether they're just angry about the place or the complaint is legit. Also, they let grandmothers join and that's just nice.

Just this week someone asked about favorite games for 3-5-year-old children and of course, my interest was peaked immediately. I was familiar with a few of them but Y'all, there are some new-to-me games out there that look fun!

So, what are the fun games grandparents should have at their house for preschoolers and kindergarteners?

New to me games:

1. Zingo! This game offers a little more than Bingo! as it has cards with pictures and words instead of letters. 
2. Sequence for kids. Easy enough just match the picture on your card with a space on your board and when you get four in a row, you win. 
3. How Does Your Garden Grow? This one seems easy enough and involves matching. 
4. Race to the Treasure. Players have to collaborate to get to the treasure before the tolls meaning everyone works together to find the best path to collect keys to unlock the treasure.
5. Spot It! Lots of different versions of this one but the object is the same in all of them. Players try to find the one symbol in common by comparing two cards. Players don't take turns because it's everyone's turn all the time.  
6. Blokus. A game of strategy that sounds like loads of fun but I would imagine this is for kids a little older unless you've got a 3 or 4-year-old genius on your hands. 
7. Hoot Owl Hoot is good for learning cooperative play and strategizing as players work together to get the owls back to the nest before sunrise. 
8. Charades for Kids. We've always played Charades but there's a kids' version. Who knew?
9. Colorama reinforces colors and shapes. 
10. Soggy Doggy means moving your game piece around the board and washing the dog who will splash you so maybe play in an area you don't mind getting wet. 

I only put a description on a few of these next games because if you've never heard of some of these you were probably living under a rock. Ha!

Oldies but goodies:

1. Robot Turtles. Ok, so not an oldie but it is a goodie. I used this game with the 4-year-olds at school and they loved it!
2. Hi-Ho Cherry O!
3. Connect Four
4. Snail's Pace Race involves rolling color dice to advance players' snails to the finish line. (I do love me some Ravensburger games. And puzzles.)
5. Guess Who?
6. Apples to Apples (Junior.) Not super old but a goodie that involves comparisons, thinking, and a whole lot of laughs. The Junior version has cards suitable for young kiddos. 
7. Chutes and Ladders
8. Scrabble Jr
9. Candy Land 
10. Memory

Of course, card games are always fun too but I was focusing on board games this time around. 

I read descriptions of the games and laughed when people wrote the game teaches cooperation instead of competition, and cheer on all the players' pieces because that is NOT the way my girls played any game. If there was a way to win, they were going to find it and do it. Of course, that could be related to the parent who was teaching them the game and/or playing with them. Ok, it was me. I'm competitive and so are my girls. If I wrote the descriptions I would include something like this: If you'd like to teach cooperation as opposed to competition please have a non-competitive person teach your child how to play the game.

The games I was unfamiliar looked seem like fun according to their descriptions and based on the reviews from the mom group. It was nice to see they included quite a few of the old standbys as well. I read about several games not mentioned on the moms' list that sounded like fun, too. Maybe Y'all will mention some of those in the comments.

Please share your favorite board games for preschoolers/kindergarteners in the comments! I'm making my list! 

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