Childhood learning games

12 Fun Educational Games for Early Childhood

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Games are an important aspect for pulling learning outside of the classroom. Kids love to play and kids learn through play. Games begin as early as birth with nursery rhymes and fun educational games such as peek-a-boo. As the child develops the games become more involved to challenge social and educational skills. When picking out a game for your child focus on where they are developmentally instead of their age.

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Developmental stages for play are:

Observant: Typically up to 12 months of age, this stage of development is for children who are fascinated by observing the world around them rather than engage in play themselves. Children in this stage remain within their comfort area as they explore the world around them. 

Solitary: Usually around the time a child becomes independently mobile they start to focus on interacting with their environments. In this stage children are learning about their selves in relationship to their environment and are learning cause and effect.

Parallel: Between ages 2 and 3 children start to become interested in sharing with the people in their environments. Even though children in this stage are still playing independently they are beginning to view themselves as part of a social group. While their thinking is still very egocentric, children in this stage are starting to mimic others and learn the social skills necessary for interaction.

Associative: Around 3 children start to include others in their play through imitation and conversation. Children in this stage are not quite playing together yet, but including others. An example of this would be two children playing blocks. They may both be building identical towers and talking about what they are doing, yet each one of them is building their own individual tower and conversation is more of a monologue than a dialogue.  

 Cooperative: Around 4-5 children start to actively engage with others in play. Imaginative play in this stage builds through everyone involved, children are better at taking turns, and eventually more complex concepts such as games with rules are able to be peacefully accomplished. 

While some of these fun educational games can only be used successfully after certain developmental stages, some have the capabilities to be used outside of their intended purposes to provide developmental challenges. 

1. Stack Up: $24.99

This is an awesome cooperative board game that works on developing hand-eye coordination, balance, color matching, and cooperation. This game is best suited for children in the associative developmental stage and up. Intended for use with 2-6 players. With 3 game levels, this game is designed to grow with your child and will definitely be loved by your child. 

If you are wanting to start introducing games to your child, this is an awesome game to start with. Forget the rules for a second and look at the pieces. They are chunky which will be easy for little hands to manipulate and they are made of wood which means durable! You could easily use this game to teach your child colors, patterns, cause and effect, spacial awareness, and much more before even taking the game board out of the box!

2. Color Stix: $18.18

Players in this game race the timer to categorize their colored sticks into groups of matching colors. This game challenges speed of thought and spatial learning. While best intended for children in the cooperative developmental stage, just like Stack Up! this game can be used to teach children patterns, colors, cause and effect, counting skills, and so much more. This game is also a perfect game for travel! 

3. The Sneaky, Sneaky Squirrel Game: $16.58

 I am all for games that are not only fun for the kids, but also fun for the parents. Sneaky, Sneaky squirrel is one of those games! This game is made for 2-4 players and best suited for children in the associative developmental stage and up. The pinchy squirrel is awesome for building pre-handwriting skills and strengthening fine motor development. This fun educational game also works on matching, sorting, hand-eye coordination, social skills, and strategic thinking. It’s durable case does double duty as the game board making this another great game for travel. Not recommended for children under the age of 3 due to small parts.

4. Perfection: $9.46

Perfection is a well loved game from my childhood! Race the timer to get all the pieces into their molds before the timer pops! This is a great game for advancing hand-eye coordination, beginning to teach time concepts,  along with teaching patience and perseverance. Recommended for ages 3 and up due to small pieces. 

5. What’s in Cat’s Hat: $12.59

Need some rainy day excitement? Invite the Cat in the Hat over for a visit! I am a huge Dr. Seuss lover and this game is a great way to incorporate a game with a book! In this multi-sensory game players collect items from around the house and take turns guessing what is in the Cat’s Hat. A perfect challenge for memory, deductive reasoning, creativity, and social interaction, this game is intended for use for 2-4 players and can easily be modified for any developmental stage.

Is your toddler too young to participate in a Q&A game? Use the Cat’s Hat to work on prepositions as you read the book or hide items inside the hat and let your child use descriptive language to tell you what they are experiencing!

6. Elefun: $19.96 

Another classic game, Elefun is a great way to get kids up and moving while encouraging interaction, patience, and following rules. This game is great for manual dexterity, counting, gross motor development, and sharing. This game works well with all stages (Recommended ages 3 and up for game piece sizes). For children in the observant stage, turn Elefun on and let your child observe the butterflies as they shoot out of Elefun’s trunk and twirl to the ground. Children in the solitary stage may enjoy figuring out how Elefun uses air to blow the butterflies out of the trunk! I have seen this game grow with children all the way up to older elementary years with a little use of creativity!

7. Pallina Bamboo Game: $39.98

 While this game is a version of Kerplunk, it is designed with the young child in mind. Made with sturdy pieces Pallina is easy for little hands to manipulate. This game is perfect for working on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and teaching concepts such as strategy and cause and effect. It can even be used to work on counting and colors! The balls in this game are fairly small, so not recommended for children who put items in their mouth.  

8. Mindware Imaginets: $25.07

Imaginets is another one of those kids products that falls into my favorite category! This game mixes imagination and critical thinking skills. Children can easily use the magnets to create their own masterpiece or follow along with one of the puzzles to recreate what they see.  This set comes with 50 full color designs that are sure to provide a visual challenge for your child. 

9. Qwirkle: $19.53

Qwirkle is another game the entire family enjoys playing! My husband is actually known to take this game to game night with the boys. Recommended for children in the cooperative stage and up. With a little creativity and patience this game can easily be played with younger children. This is a fun game to play as a partner with your child until they get the hang of it. The pieces are decent size and chunky making them manageable for little hands. This game could easily be used to work on pattern making, colors, shapes, matching, counting, and much more.  

10. Stormy Sea’s Game of Balance: $28.19

Due to small parts this game is not recommended for children who put things in their mouth. This game is definitely a challenge, but not such a challenge it is frustrating. Players take turn rolling the dice and stacking the selected item on a rocky boat. This game can be played with others or alone and works on fine motor skills and spatial awareness. This game is an awesome way to work on counting, colors, sorting, matching, and so much more!

11. Feed the Woozle: $19.99 

This adorable cooperative game is awesome for working on body awareness, fine motor skills, turn taking, and counting. This game is great for shared decision making, emotional development, and creative problem solving. In this game all the players work together to reach the same goal which is an amazing way to work on teamwork. My daughter finds Woozle hilarious and loves that like her, he doesn’t believe in the 5 second rule! 

12.

Hello Sunshine is a perfect first game for young toddlers! This lovely plush toy comes with a set of 18 double sided cards that challenge toddler’s to work on their prepositions and vocabulary. My son loves playing hide-n-seek with this friendly lovey. The bright colored illustrations make it easy for young children to understand the directions on the card. This game is bound to bring giggles and smiles as your child explores their environment in search of the sun! 

Other Ideas You Will Love!

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Top 7 Fun Games for Early Childhood Education

Games for preschoolers aren’t just about having fun, although they can certainly provide lots of entertainment! It’s important to keep your kids playing because there are lots of other benefits to fun preschool games, including the skills they teach young kids. Here are just a few:

1. Play Helps Develop Social Skills

When kids engage in preschool games, they learn social skills like how to cooperate and communicate with each other, how to be patient and take turns, and how to resolve conflicts. These are great skills to have, especially for building friendships. Many games also help kids learn how to express themselves, with and without language, through play, storytelling, and art.

2. Play Develops Cognitive, Critical Thinking & Motor Skills

Almost all preschool classroom games challenge the way kids think or move. They help kids with critical thinking skills like attention, memory, control, and flexibility. And physical activity helps them work on both fine and gross motor skills like running and coloring, balance, and coordination. Even simple tasks can feel like games to kids, like playing with shapes or counting simple objects, but they’re learning and developing cognitive skills as they play.

3. Play Creates Confidence In Children

One of the best ways to build confidence is to take risks, and play gives young kids exactly that opportunity. As kids learn and experiment with new games, they realize that they have the ability to do things they never knew they could. They slowly build independence as they learn they can trust themselves, and not just adults, to make choices.

4. Play Inspires Creativity

Imaginative play helps kids develop their creativity. You can see this if they start using regular objects for pretend play or pretend to take on different roles, like a doctor or superhero or astronaut. When young kids use their imaginations, they’re revealing that they have the ability to create something new, which is a great step toward more sophisticated, innovative thinking.

1. Duck, Duck, Goose

You might remember this preschool classroom game from your own childhood… but did you know that while you played, you were learning strategic thinking?

Kids sit in a circle and one kid walks around the outside, eventually picking another child to be “goose” and chase them around the circle. The strategy kids can pick up on is that if they choose a friend who isn’t paying attention, they have a better chance of making it safely around the circle without being caught.

2. Musical Chairs

This game might become frustrating for some kids, but that’s ok, because it teaches them how to cope with disappointment and communicate patiently with their friends.

Set up chairs in a circle, and make sure is one fewer chair than the number of kids playing. As you play music, kids will walk around the circle, and when the music stops, they all need to try to find a chair. Each round, one kid will be out, and this sometimes results in a little bit of natural conflict as kids learn to work out who sat on a chair first.

3. Red Light, Green Light

Need to help kids practice patience and resisting their impulses? This is the perfect fun preschool game!

One kid stands at the end of a large space and faces away from all the other kids lined up relatively far away from him. When he isn’t looking, the other kids can move toward him, as fast as they want to… but as soon as he turns around, they have to freeze or he’ll catch them and they’re out. Kids have to ask themselves questions like, “how fast can I run?” and “when can I start?” to prevent being caught.

4. Sleeping Lions

This game for preschoolers challenges them to ignore distractions and stay focused.

One kid walks around and tries to wake up all her friends, who are pretending to be sleeping lions. If they move, or laugh, or open their eyes, they’re out. The last one to ignore all the silly wake up attempts is the winner. It’s hard for young kids to focus this well, but it’s great practice for all the distractions they might face in different environments as they get older.

5. Memory/Concentration

Kids can play this game for Early Childhood Education by themselves or with a few others. It helps with attention and short-term memory.

The game can be played in a few different ways, but they all involve challenging kids to reveal hidden matches. Usually the game involves spreading out cards with matching pairs flipped over so they can’t be seen. Kids turn two cards over at a time until they find a pair. The goal is to match all the pairs, and kids need to pay attention and remember where previous cards were located to win.

6. Four Corners

This preschool game is great for lots of energetic players. It also helps develop social skills like listening and speaking.

Play by labeling four corners of a room with colors, shapes, or numbers, depending on current teaching goals. One kid is “it” and should be blindfolded. Then, all the other kids choose a corner to stand in. The kid who is “it” says the name of one of the corners, and all of the kids in that corner are now “out.” Kids choose new corners, and the game keeps going until only one kid is left and declared the winner.

7. mTiny

When you’re looking for early childhood education games, the ones that have survived for generations are great. But don’t forget that kids live in an increasingly digital world, and that experimenting with technology is just as fun and important. After all, technology and the skills that come with are part of your child’s future and can set them up for success. This is exactly why Makeblock made the mTiny, an early childhood education robot.

mTiny combines all the components of preschool classroom games, like creativity, confidence, social skills, and critical thinking into one learning system that’s perfect for the digital age. They learn to be problem-solvers and build their resilience and curiosity. It also provides the stimulation and engagement kids need to learn and feel challenged, and fosters an interest in math, English, music, and other subjects.

What is mTiny, Exactly?

It’s an adorable robot that comes with a tap pen controller, coding cards with easy symbols, a large puzzle map, and an instructional storybook. Kids learn the principles of coding with a robot designed just for them. Maybe one of the best parts is that even though mTiny uses technology, it’s completely screen free. No internet, no phones, no TV, no tablets; just an interactive robot with fun emotions and sound effects that kids can learn to control.

Why mTiny is Good for Early Childhood Education?

One of the foundations of mTiny’s design is to complement early childhood education learning goals. Kids practice linguistic skills like role-playing, interpersonal skills through parent-child activities, logical thinking through math and coding, and kinesthetic learning by completing puzzles. As kids work through age appropriate challenges, they feel like they’re playing another fun preschool game.

Makeblock’s mTiny is exactly what learning is all about: having fun. You can feel confident that your kid will learn both concepts and important skills while playing with this versatile robot, which offers the best in the world of preschool games.

Makeblock cares about your kids and what they learn, and we want them to have fun while they’re growing in mind and body. Visit our website to learn more.

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