Children observe and absorb everything around them. They are always looking for ways to learn and familiarize themselves with new skills.
While adults don’t always associate play with learning, recent studies have shown that playtime helps to improve a child’s cognitive, emotional, physical, and social well-being.
In addition to unstructured play, board games also help children develop valuable life skills such as problem-solving, team-building, and practicing sportsmanship.
Many people believe that to acquire a new skill, children should simply repetitively practice the individual skill over and over, such as reciting the alphabet, counting numbers, or practicing cursive writing over and over again. What they seem to underestimate is the power of learning through experience and fun.
Benefits Of Play For Children
Play allows children to make use of their senses, learn from their environment and use multiple parts of their brain simultaneously. It encourages children to develop their creative imagination, emotional intelligence, physical strength, and cognitive competencies.
Moreover, playing games instills concepts like:
- patience
- critical thinking
- following instructions
- experimentation
- exploration
- social interaction
- and more
All excellent things to practice from an early age.
It is through play that children learn to conquer their fears and develop the competencies that they require to face future challenges.
Social play also encourages children to work on their decision-making, negotiating, conflict resolution, and self-advocacy skills.
It allows them to discover their areas of interest and engage in things they truly love. All in all, play is an exceptional way to improve a child’s overall well-being.
How Do Board Games Help a Child’s Development?
Board games offer several benefits and positively affect a child’s growth over time. Who would have thought that simple board games for 4 year-olds could have such a strong imprint on a child’s development?
- Healthy Brain Development – Board games are an easy way to encourage healthy development in the frontal lobes of the brain. These areas of the brain are responsible for important skills like planning, organizing, and decision-making.
- Improves Focus and Patience – Children are naturally impulsive. Board games, when played without interruption, can help improve a child’s attention span and patience. Reduce distractions by turning off the television and giving your child and the game your full attention. (Note: We specifically created the list of board games for 4 year-olds because some games are too complicated for young children. While games offer many benefits, children can become bored or frustrated with games that are too advanced for their stage of development.)
- Emotional Regulation – Children learn emotional skills over time and with repeated practice. Kids are not born with the natural ability to regulate their emotions. The frustrations and joys that come with board games can help them better understand their emotions and have opportunities to practice regulating them in a low pressure situation.
- Teamwork – Most board games are played by two or more players. This also means that each player has to wait for their turn and play in harmony so that all participants can enjoy their part in the game. We have also included cooperative game options that require participants to work together towards a common goal.
- Frustration Tolerance – Playing board games requires patience. This becomes particularly important when things aren’t going your way. Games help children to practice responding respectfully and accepting failures with grace.
- Unplug – You don’t need technology to play board games. They are an opportunity to disconnect from the daily hustle, turn off screens, put away phones, and find a fun balance between digital and real life.
15 of the Best Board Games for 4 Year-Olds
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A bestselling board game that encourages critical thinking, hand-eye coordination, and language skills in preschoolers. Learning words with three, four, and five letters is fun with this easy-to-play yet engaging activity.
Up to 7 players can play at the same time, so there’s plenty of room for everyone. Plus, it comes with a slider, which shoots out two tiles at a time into a tray underneath. Each player gets a card, and you have to place the colored tile corresponding to the image on the card. The first one to complete their card wins.
While most board games for 4 year-olds are competitive in nature, Hoot Owl Hoot! offers a great change of pace as players work cooperatively towards a common goal. The game builds with excitement as players work together to help the family of owls get home before the sun rises. Similar to Candy Land, players use cards with colored dots to move the owl family closer to the nest. Players can add additional owls to make the game more challenging.
Candy Land is a great first game for kids. It comes with colorful cards, fun illustrations, and sweet surprises. It encourages children to use their creative imagination and practice taking turns. Children sometimes get to practice dealing with emotional setbacks when they lose a turn or get sent backwards, as they try to make their way to the end of the game.
Players take turns moving their gingerbread pawn towards the king’s castle. They encounter all sorts of fun obstacles in this race-to-the-finish board game. This game includes pawns for up to 4 players and a deck of colorful cards, which makes it is easy to play since it doesn’t require any reading for young kids.
A silly and engaging game that teaches children about strategy and patience while improving their dexterity and motor skills. The game comes with 30 noodles, a bowl, a cute little Yeti, and a book of instructions for two or more players.
To play, simply place the noodles in the bowl and then the Yeti on top. Start pulling the noodles one by one, but don’t let the Yeti fall!
A board game spin on the classic game of “Eye Spy.” Eye Found It brings in all the favorite Disney characters on a six-foot board game with several other components like movers, spinners, mouse-ear tokens, search cards, sand timer, and a set of instructions.
The fun thing about this game is that it is thoughtfully designed for the whole family to participate. Eye Found It can host up to 6 players. It has a lot to explore and encourages children to develop skills such as teamwork, matching, cooperation, object identification, memory, and focus.
Parents are often worried about teaching spelling and words to their little ones. Introducing learning through play is less stressful for a child. It links positive emotions like fun, happiness, and excitement with learning.
Board games like Little Treasurers Matching letters works on improving the child’s word recognition, spelling, memory, hand-eye coordination, and sequencing. It is an educational game that can host 2 players who have to match the card with the right spelling.
While learning foundational literacy skills with letters and words is important, we can’t forget about numbers! Hi Ho Cherry-O helps develop basic mathematics skills by practicing counting and number recognition. Each player spins the wheel and picks the number of pretend cherries in their basket. The first one to fill their basket wins the game.
Most kids won’t even realize they are practicing basic math skills while playing this fun filled game.
This engaging game provides a way for children to learn about strategy, planning, and logical thinking from an early start. Along with cognitive development, board games like Sequence are also great for improving ability to focus and developing patience.
The game calls for 2 to 4 players. Each player gets cards from the stack, which they have to play from their hand. Then place their color chip on the corresponding character on the eleven inches board. Whoever succeeds in placing four chips in a row wins.
Not every game is about learning specific concepts. Some incredible games like How Tall Am I? focus on a child’s creative thinking. While other games have rules that limit creativity, this game gives autonomy to a child to create a character from 30 different pieces and explore even more by creating a different character every time.
The game includes a spinner and a custom ruler to incorporate math skills and spacial abilities as well. 2-4 players can take part in it together and create crazy characters. The player that makes the tallest character wins the game!
Another board game that explores the world of words and their beginning sounds is Sequence Letters. Similar to Sequence for kids, this one also works on logical thinking, strategy, planning, matching, recognition, and coordination. The bonus with this one is that it incorporates matching the sound of the letter on the card to the corresponding picture on the board.
This is a perfect board game if you would like to teach your 4 year-old to learn the sounds of letters. Each card showcases upper and lower case letters. 2-4 players match the card with the picture and keep the chip there. The first one to get five chips in a row wins.
An exciting game that most kids will love as it requires them to launch ants into the panda’s pants. It helps the children to work on their motor skills, focus, and aim. While it may seem like a trivial game, to a child, it is a fun way to practice different skills and concepts.
It is common for children to act impulsively, but a board game like Ants in the Pants teaches important lessons like patience and control. Kids learn about taking turns and learning from failure. If the launch the ant and miss the panda, they can then use what they learn to make adapt their strategy and try again. The game includes 16 colorful ants, and a panda wearing pants. The first one to get four ants in the panda’s pants wins.
Here is another great game that encourages cooperation by requiring teamwork, problem-solving, and shared decision-making. You win together, you lose together, and you play together. Snug as a Bug in a Rug is a fun skill building game that works on several preschool concepts like colors, shapes, numbers, sizes, counting, and focus all in one.
The players work together to beat the stinkbug and save all the colorful bugs. Players roll the dice, spin the spinner, and take turns to match and save the bugs. Playing cooperative games like this one help develop social skills and promote the benefits of community and non-stressful play. It is a great way to promote cooperation and teamwork amongst siblings.
Shark Bite brings the excitement to you family fun. You never know when the shark will bite as you fish out the sea creatures from its mouth. This game feels like a bit of a change from regular board games. It helps develop motor skills while keeping up the excitement and suspense.
2-4 players take turns to fish for sea creatures. When the shark bites, the game is over, and the player that has collected the most sea creatures is the winner. No batteries required!
Every kid loves a scavenger hunt, be it indoors or outdoors. This game is a happy marriage between fun and learning. Children get to learn various concepts like numbers, letters, shapes, color and animal recognition, phonological awareness, and so much more.
The whole family can play this game together or one child can play on their own. The game comes with a set of 50 cards with different prompts and clues. The first one to find 7 complete cards and call out “found it” wins the game. It keeps the kids entertained and boosts their observation skills.
Last on our list of board games for 4 year-olds is the classic, Let’s Go Fishin’. Many board games involve taking turns and practicing self-control, Let’s Go Fishing is all about who can catch the most fish the quickest! A rotating pond and fishes that open and close their mouths, make it even more challenging for the players to catch the fish with the mini fishing rods.
This game is super fun and works on developing hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. A nice feature of this game is that a child can have fun playing it alone, as well as with others.
Final Thoughts About Board Games for 4 Year-Olds
Children love playing with their parents and board games are a great way to have fun as a family. Play time has numerous benefits and lessons for children to adapt and learn. Board games teach about teamwork, patience, strategies, logical thinking, creativity, winning and losing gracefully, interpersonal relationships, and respect and regard for others. We hope this post has given you some fun ideas for board games to play with your family😀
