Looking for kids board games to bring some fun and reduce screen time? Children board games need to be fast to learn and easy to understand. Check our best kids board games list for ages 5 and above. Our list covers games that involve family interaction, action and dexterity, puzzles and simple strategy that encourage critical thinking and games that teach kids about life.
Action games
Action games are great for young kids from ages 5. Kids interact with the board game pieces to solve puzzles as well as test their dexterity skills. The physical interaction is an effective way of engaging young children.
Animal Upon Animal
Animal Upon Animal is a 2-4 player game, initially intended for children but equally as enticing for adults. The objective of the game is to be the most skilful at stacking and be the first left without any animals. Animal Upon Animal is an engaging and addictive game, with its colourful wooden animals and their different unique shapes requiring players to strategically think about the placement of their animals in order for their stacked tower to not fall. Whether it be taking the challenging approach of stacking animals straight up or strategically placing animals by their shapes and sizes, everyone will have crazy fun playing! This game uses a die component to determine different factors of their animal pyramid. For example, rolling an alligator on a die will expand the base of a player’s pyramid and rolling 1 dot will require players to take an animal from their provision and place it carefully with one hand on the pyramid. If animals tumble down during stacking or the whole pyramid collapses, the stacking ends immediately. The game ends as soon as a player is left without animals and they win!!
ICECOOL
The lunch break is almost there and all of the young penguins would finally get the fish they’ve been craving. However, some rascals think they are quick enough to snatch some of the fish before the lunch break starts, but they have forgotten one thing – the Hall Monitor! Each school day one of the penguins is designated to watch over the school, and this is his moment to shine – for each rascal penguin he catches he would get additional fish! ICECOOL is a 2-4 player flicking game where the objective for players is to collect fish without being caught by the Hall Monitor (the catcher) in order to accumulate Victory Points. Players take turns being the Catcher and the game is over when every player has been the Catcher once. The game consists of as many rounds as there are players and each round consists of 3 phases. You set the game board comprising a setup of various rooms. Phase 1 – Round Setup Players place their penguins. Phase 2 – Playing the Round Players who are not the Hall Monitor take turns flicking their penguins around to collect fish. The Hall Monitor flicks their Penguin around the board trying to catch the other players. Phase 3 – The End of the Round The player with the highest amount of victory points wins!
Coconuts
Coconuts is a children’s board game in which players launch coconuts toward a field of cups in the middle of the playing area. When your coconut lands in a cup, you get to stack it on your player board.
If your coconut lands in someone else’s cup, you get to move it to yours. Players can use different “special” cards to sabotage their opponents. The first player to complete a pyramid of six cups on their player board wins!
Rhino Hero: Super Battle
Rhino Hero is back on the job! And this time his superhero friends Giraffe Boy, Big E. and Batguin join him. As a team, the superheroes construct a dizzyingly tall skyscraper. Can they climb the many levels of the skyscraper? Only if it is constructed carefully, and the heroes have a steady hand. It’s important not to get ahead of yourself, as battles can easily send you back to the bottom. The only way to be the winning superhero is to hide the superhero medal and stop the mean spider monkeys from disturbing you!
Racing – Race to finish line games
Racing or race to finish line board games provide kids with the excitement of competing to the finish line. These games are typically luck-based and involve either dice or spinners. Some of these games create interaction and additional competitiveness by allowing players to negatively impact their opponent’s progress.
Sorry! Sliders
Play Sorry in a new way!
The Sorry! Sliders game features the primary Sorry! colors of blue, red, yellow, and green. In addition to the rolling pawns, there are 16 scoring pawns that are smaller than the rolling pawns and do not contain the rolling balls at their bottoms. In addition, the game offers four different versions of gameplay–a fun, new variation on the original Sorry! that only offers one way to play.
Adding a new twist to the game by turning it into a shuffle board game–sliding your pawns into the Sorry! or sliding your opponent’s pawns into the Home! spaces and off the board to win.
Because it doesn’t require a high level of skill or strategy, it can be enjoyed by people of all ages. In addition, it is a game that you can play for as long or as little as you like.
Sorry! Sliders are also educational for children who need to practice counting skills, since players must add up points and scores.
Trouble
Trouble is a race-based board game where the objective is to move all four of your colored pegs around the board and into your “home” space before anyone else does. The gameplay revolves around a pop-o-matic dice roller that determines how many spaces you can move on each turn. It may sound simple, but believe me, it’s anything but!
Game Mechanics
The mechanics of the game are what make it so unique and fun. The pop-o-matic dice roller adds an element of surprise to the game, as you never know how many spaces you’ll be able to move on your turn. This can lead to both excitement and frustration, making for a thrilling gameplay experience.
Is Trouble fun?
What I love most about Trouble is its simplicity. Unlike other board games with complex rules and strategies, Trouble is easy to learn and can be enjoyed by players of all ages. especially kids as young as five.
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Candy Land
- Remember when you were a kid and played Candy Land? Bring Candy Land to a new generation of kids
- RACE TO THE CASTLE: Move your cute gingerbread man pawn around the path to reach the castle as you encounter all kinds of “delicious” surprises
- NO READING REQUIRED TO PLAY: Candy Land is a great game for children ages 3 and up who don’t know how to read yet
- GREAT GAME FOR LITTLE ONES: With colorful cards, fun illustrations, and sweet destinations, Candy Land is the perfect classic board game for young children.
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Chutes and Ladders
Players travel along the squares sometimes using ladders that represent good acts, which bring them closer to nirvana, while snakes represent evil.
Puzzles, Deduction and Educational games suitable for 5 year olds
Games of puzzles and deduction encourage kids to critically think. Here are some games that will develop their thinking skills. Cooperative games like Outfoxed also help introduce the concept of teamwork.
Carcassonne Junior
My First Carcassonne, also known as Carcassonne Junior, is designed for ages four and up. The original Carcassonne core game design remains, but counting scores is no longer needed.
The medieval city’s residents celebrate the holiday by releasing sheep, chickens, and cows into the street. Help the children of Carcassonne bring the animals home by laying tiles!
Build the city by placing tiles each turn. The streets of Carcassonne fill with children as the game progresses.
You get pawns each time you close off a street with at least one child dressed in your player color. Win the game by placing all your pawns!
The setup time and understanding of the rules were quick and easy. A simple game, it adds a lot of different elements, such as strategy, competition, resource management, but also luck.
I think the best thing about it is the quick playtime and replayability factor.
Kids’ games rely heavily on dice or spinners (and do not require any skill whatsoever.
I wanted to find a game for my child who has recently turned five that will require her to think, to plan ahead, to strategize, and to consider aspects of the game that are happening around her. It does precisely that with this game. Kids need challenges, and this encourages critical thinking.
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Outfoxed!
A chicken chase is underway to find Mrs. Plumpert’s missing pot pie! You can gather clues and then rule out suspects using the special evidence scanner. Time is of the essence because the fox is scurrying for the door! You must stop the hungry hooligan or you will be outfoxed!
About the Game
As fans of both cooperative and deduction games, Outfoxed was a no-brainer! It is a wonderful venue for honing deductive reasoning in a non-competitive environment created by the Department Recreation team. By working together to find the guilty fox, you’ll gain valuable skills such as estimating probability and paying attention to details, as well as the importance of collaboration in solving problems.
Rory’s Story Cubes
Here’s a game that’s enormous fun and will sharpen your wits and hone your imagination. The 54 images were designed by Rory O’Connor of Ireland, a trainer in creativity and creative problem-solving. They can be used to arrive at answers or decisions in an indirect and ingenious way.
Originally Rory had put the images on the faces of a Rubik’s Cube, and players would turn the Cube to scramble the images, then choose one side to play with. Kate Jones of Kadon Enterprises suggested putting the 54 images on 9 separate cubes, to allow for quicker ways to generate more varied combinations, including conceptual puzzles. Rory readily agreed, having considered the 9-cubes idea himself earlier. At a creativity conference held at Kadon headquarters in May 2004, a prototype was whipped up, and in 2005 Kadon launched the cubes version of Rory’s Story Cubes.
Each jumbo 1″ cube has 6 images or icons, with a total of 54 all-different hand-inlaid images that can be mixed in over 10 million ways. You roll all 9 cubes to generate 9 random images and then use these to invent a story that starts with “Once upon a time…” and uses all 9 elements as part of your narrative.
Play it as a game for one or more players, or as a party game for three or more. Or play it as an improv game where each player contributes part of the story, picking up where the last one left off. Win award points for speedy delivery, inventiveness, imagination, drama and humor.
Full instructions include several other ways to use the cubes to solve problems, break up writer’s block, enhance your imagination and heighten your ability to find unifying themes among the diverse images. Interpret or get at the meanings of your answers more quickly. It’s fun, easy, and mind-stretching.
As a puzzle the cubes will really give your imagination a work-out. You’ll practically feel both sides of your brain dancing. The challenge: Fit the 9 cubes into a 3×3 square. Now examine the cubes in any one row and turn them so their tops have something in common. Do this for all 3 rows. Explain your choices, or challenge another player to identify the element they share. More than one answer may be right, and there are thousands of possible combinations.
Rory’s Story Cubes are recommended for all ages over 8, though it’s fun to watch a younger child create combinations with the cubes and make up stories.
Guess Who?
Players choose mystery characters and use yes or no questions to figure out each other’s. Taking a guess at the mystery character of their opponent. The player who guesses wrong loses!
A player asks their opponent a yes/no question, like ‘Does your character wear glasses?’
When the answer is no, the asker closes the door on characters wearing glasses, leaving the remaining possibilities open.
If yes, they close the doors on characters without glasses.
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