We are Gamers

One day I came into the kitchen after putting my baby to bed to find my toddler sitting at the table with Settlers of Catan. He looked up and me and asked me very politely to play a game with him. Now, I could have told him no or that we needed to pick a different game that he could play. But instead I sat down and said ‘ok’ and figured out a way to play with him. He knows that his daddy and I love to play games. So, now we play a game together almost every time my baby takes a nap. It doesn’t matter that we aren’t playing the games ‘the right way’. What matters is that we are having special just him and me time. Since I take the time to play adult games with him he doesn’t try to sneak and play with them while I am not looking and lose pieces. Yeah, we play Hi Ho Cherry-O and Memory now and then, but we play mommy’s games too.

Adapting games to play with your preschooler:

Othello-Practice taking turns placing the pieces on the board. Arrange the pieces into shapes, letters, or numbers. Practice simple patterns.

Uno (at our house we have uno attack!)- Take turns taking cards. Practice identifying numbers and colors. When the deck is gone sort the cards into piles according to color. When your child has mastered sorting by color try sorting by number.

Dice games (such as Yahtzee)- Practice counting and numbers! Count the dice, count the dots, match up dice with the same number facing up, how many times you roll, etc. Also practice fine motor skills by stacking the dice, see how many you can stack up!

Settlers of Catan- Let your preschooler practice fitting the pieces together. Build designs, patterns, letters, and numbers with the little wooden pieces. I don’t get out all of the many parts of the game, but my preschooler loves to feel like he is playing by just using parts of the game. He can’t tell that he is only playing part of the game!

Scrabble- Practice identifying letters. We like to ‘match up’ I will say something like “I found an A, can you find another A?” We also like to add in letter sounds now and then. For example I might say “Look D for d-d-d-Daddy! The sound for D is d-uh.” For older preschoolers you can also start building words.

Rummikub- Identify the different numbers. Sort numbers and colors.