Board games with kids

Introduction

It has been a long time I wanted to do this mostly because this information was not so easy to find out. I am a dad to two little girls (currently age 7 and 3), but I love the idea of playing board games with them. In this Blog I will try to explain why playing board games with kids is good, what games to play and how to play them. Use this as a guide but not a solid rule to everything. The idea of this article is to get parents exposed to gaming and all its glory
When someone new to board gaming think about board games they immediately think about Monopoly and Candy Land and these type of games, so let me tell you right now - my Blog will not cover these common games. Most of the lack what I look for in a game - many are low quality and just mass produced. Not to say they are all bad, but the games I will cover here are better quality game with better value and game play experience.

The benefits

Gaming can help your kids in may way so let me put a list together of all the benefits that I have found boardgames to help with. Later in the blog I may refer back to this list and point out which game help with some of these benefits

Turns- learning when to play and taking turns is a major benefits when playing a game. Kids normally feel that they should be able to play any time without waiting for their turn. You can see this in the playground, when a bunch of kids all go for the same slide ride. Normally, you would have an adult telling them "wait your turn". Well, playing games will show them how to take turns, and pay attention when it is someone else turn. If a game only just shows turns - it is a benefit on its own even if there is not much else going on. For little kids (3 year old or younger), you should consider getting games that promote turns.
Decision making - The level of decision making during a game varies a lot depending on the game. For example, dice and roll type of games may have little decisions going on. With little kids it important to control the number of choices they can make during a game. The more choices the harder it can be for a child. The older they get the more options they can handle. As a parent during the game it is important to help them understand the options but not really take them. Make sure the child makes his own choices. Developing decision making ability will also help troubleshooting skills and strategy and planning skills.
Quality time and fun It is very important that as a parent you spend time with your kids but to be clear it needs to be quality time. Quality time is very different than spending time. It means no iPhone no work related stuff, no TV and basically not doing other things then being with your child. The simpler solution is of course play a board game. Now just to be clear I don't suggest that's the only thing you do, physical sports and going out are just as important, but on a rainy day, or really cold day - playing a game can be a lot of fun. Especially if you have many kids, then playing a game is like giving attention to everyone at once. The most important thing to take away from playing board games with kids is to have fun. It is important that you and your kid would enjoy it. If this is not fun, then the game does not work - don't force it to work.
Imagination -Most board games have a theme, and in fact when it comes to playing with young kids I only choose games with a strong theme. Generic games without a theme are less interesting for kids and don't develop their imagination much. For example the game Trouble has little theme so many companies decided to give it a theme by putting a Hello Kitty on the box or some other icon kids can relate to. This for me is not fixing the theme issue - it is an attempt to get kids to recognize the box and ask for the parents to get it, but the game itself is the same. An example of a game with a strong theme would be for example "Forbidden Island" or "Survive" where in both games there is an island and you need to survive. Some games, mostly games with a dynamic board allow you get to "build stuff", for example build a city or roads, for example the game Carcassonne allows you to build your own city and roads. A game like Ticket to Ride, allows you to build train tracks and connect cities in different ways. The rule for imagination development is "story", can you tell a story or be consumed by the story of the game. I will go into how to improve imagination by altering the game and adding additional components to it.
Cooperation - Some games are cooperation games, where the players of the game need to beat the game and not each other. This is by far my favorite type of game style. You don't have to worry about winning, when you win then you win as a group, and when you loose you loose as a group so cooperation between players is key (Forbidden Island). Even with competitive game there is some level of cooperation needed, you might need to "make deals" (Catan).
Competitive - Winning a game is tons of fun, but this can also be a problem and in most cases I consider this more of a problem then a benefit. Still, learning to be a little competitive is good, and trying to win is good. What's no so good is how to cope with loosing. This is a major problem for kids and parents. To overcome this I noticed some parents let their kids win (which I don't recommend). The key to overcome this problem is put less importance on the game outcome and more importance on the game play. As a parent, you should not focus on winning or losing - focus on having fun and interaction with your child. I will go into this more in my guide for playing with kids
Math - Many games deal with scoring, this is an opportunity to develop your kids math abilities. When it comes to math I like to make things visual, so for points normally there would be a marker on the board (Ticket To Ride), but some games you can keep store by buying some marbles from a dollar store and your score can be a pile of marbles. Another use of marbles is to teach division, putting marbles into sets can explain how to do division (Stone Age). Math is used by many games, this is a great way to improve your kid math ability, they will learn better in a game setting, rather than a school setting (just because it is more fun)

Guidelines for playing a game with a 3-5 year old child

Many think children age 2-3 are too young to play board games. This is not true. I have played board games with my kids from the age of 2. However, you need to know the limitation and challenges of your child when playing games. Here is a list of common challenges during a game play with a young kid.

Attention span is low - normally it is about 5-10 minutes per game. I have actually seen it with a 3 year old go as low is 3 minutes. This means the kid would want to do something else after this timespan. Normally they can't stay focused on one game for too long. This is normal. To solve this issue I recommend the following:

No need to finish the game, if the game is not over it is not a big deal. End the game. This is forcing my point on focusing on the game play and not the result.
Change games, once the child had enough with one game, then change to another game - no need to finish the game
No need to follow games rules, for young kids following the original game rules is not a must. Make up house rules or simpler rules to achieve a better attention span, and more fun. For example, a complex game like Ticket to Ride, can be played by a 3 year old simply making train tracks between cities
Let your child manage the game mechanics, giving cards or rolling dice or whatever you need to do to play the game. Don't do it for your kid. Make sure he is doing these tasks and developing eye / hand coordination

Playing with game parts, but not playing the game - This is very normal for a young kid to just start playing with the pieces and not follow any of the game rules. As a parent you want them to play with the pieces and let them explore them, touch them, examine them. You should even ask questions like "what color is that?", or "what do you see on the card" to promote discussion and exploration. Eventually, the exploration phase dies out and you can start playing the game, but don't rush.
Make the game more fun by adding parts or making a story - To make the game more fun, I like to use the dollar store and buy parts that I think will add value to the game. For points I get marbles, some games have animals, so I might get a few animals miniatures that can be on the game (for exmaple Enchanted Forest is a good game where you can add animals to the board
I am just going to repeat this again, but my last point is to have fun. Do not get frustrated with your kid if they are not following the rules or if they don't seem focused enough. These things can take take time, your first play can be a total mess, your second play would be better - but make sure your child is having fun and this is not forced by any means

Games for 3-5 year olds

Little Orchard Game from Haba

This is my first recommendation for a 3 year old child or older. The game helps with turns, memory, hand / eye coordination and best of all it is cooperative game. There is really not much that needs to be done to improve this game - it is just great, but here are a few tips

When getting a sleeping animal, explain what animal it is and what it is doing, your child will eventually know all the sleeping animals
When you get the crow, I like to make some crow sounds and soon your child will do it too when you get a crow
Let your kid do the rolling of the dice and flipping of the cards, remind your child where the crows are

Hop! hop! hop!

This game is expensive, but it is getting played a lot by my 3 year old. There is not much going on and the video is not in English but it is the only video on this I found. The only problem is that the game might go a little long for a 3 year old, so you can make it shorter by putting less sheep on the board or just stopping the game whenever you feel your child had enough

I could not find a video in English but you can see the idea by watching the video. This game is very simple but its 3D design and some limited choices with the dice make it a good game with 3 year old or 4 year old. The concept of the rolling a "wind", allows the kid to move part of the bridge, but without making it fall - this is the most fun part of the game for the child, I usually make all kind of wind sound effects to make it more dramatic

Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game

This is cute game focus more on eye / hand coordination and is a lot of fun. Using the squirrel can be hard for 3 year old, so I don't always use it. Young kids can simply use their hands to place the items in the wood logs and match colors - this is good too. As the child grows up you can use the squirrel - and I have even made this game work with 5-6 year olds by putting a timer on a move, to make it more exciting.

Ghost Blitz

Very good game for 6 year old and up, they say 8 but you can play with a 6 year old. This game is a lot of fun. You can play it with also a 3 year old by simply just matching the shapes on the card with the shapes in the game, still fun.