Preschool Game Reviews
🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🏆 Sportsmanship — Experiencing winning and losing in a supportive environment — and practicing how to handle both graciously — builds the emotional resilience and social grace that competitive situations throughout life require.
- 💬 Communication Skills — Negotiating rules, explaining moves, and discussing the game develops vocabulary, sentence construction, and the conversational back-and-forth that underlies all effective social communication.
- 🧩 Memory & Concentration — Memory and matching games directly exercise working memory — the ability to hold information in mind while using it — which is one of the strongest predictors of reading and mathematical success.
- ⚡ Quick Thinking & Processing — Fast-paced games that require quick visual scanning or rapid decision-making develop processing speed and visual discrimination — skills that support reading fluency and mathematical fact retrieval.
Preschool Games is dedicated to helping you make an educated decision when choosing the right game for your preschooler. Find honest opinions about new and popular games from real moms and their preschoolers. Save time, money, and shelf space by choosing a game that is suitable for your preschooler's interest level and capabilities. Make the joy of receiving a new game last for your preschooler. Let Preschool Games help find your preschooler's next exciting game!
Featured Preschool Game Reviews
Cranium Cariboo
Make learning fun for preschoolers! Match letters, numbers, shapes, and colors for a chance to search for hidden treasure. Cariboo goes beyond simple letter and number recognition and encourages preschool reading skills and critical thinking.
My First Alphabet Game
This fun yet educational matching game by DK Games, encourages preschoolers to recognize letters and sounds. Colorful photographs of animals and objects engage preschoolers and delight their visual senses!
More Preschool Game Reviews
Cookie Monster's Letter of the Day Bingo
Featured Preschool Games Book
The Preschooler's Busy Book
From the editorial and review page of Amazon.com Capital Parent says: "For little hands that are eager for action, The Preschooler's Busy Book has multitude of answers. The Busy Book will offer hours of entertaining activities for parents and their children. As the years go by and the book becomes worn, no doubt many of the activities will have provided a wealth of fond memories."
Around PreschoolRock.com
Pick-Up Pretzel Sticks Game
This game is an alternate version of the traditional Pick-Up Sticks game. Test your and your preschoolers hand-eye skills with this fun (and yummy) preschool game!
Marble Hide-And-Seek
Preschoolers love the game of hide-and-seek. Here's a marble version of the game. You can use objects from around your house to create this preschool game. Marble Hide-and-Seek will help your preschooler develop his/her memory skills.
Helpful Tips for Parents
- Game time is a powerful family connection opportunity. 20 minutes of a board game or outdoor game delivers more relational warmth than 20 minutes of parallel screen time.
- Classic games (Duck Duck Goose, Red Light Green Light, Hide and Seek) have lasted because they're developmentally well-matched — they work across ages, require minimal equipment, and never get old.
- Games of chance (dice games, spin-the-wheel) are excellent for preschoolers because the outcome is random — no one is consistently better than anyone else, making losing easier to accept.
- Games that involve physical movement (Simon Says, freeze dance, relay races) develop the same cognitive regulation capacities as sitting-still games, with the addition of gross motor benefits.
- Allow children to sometimes change the rules mid-game. This creative play — altering an existing game's parameters — is creative thinking and shows deep game understanding.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are video games appropriate for preschoolers?
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting all screens (including video games) to 1 hour per day for children ages 2–5. Simple, educational touchscreen games have minimal harm when time-limited; fast-paced, commercial, or violent video games are not appropriate for preschoolers at any screen time level. The best educational value comes from games that are interactive and challenge thinking — simple puzzles, matching, and story-based apps. Video games should not replace physical games or creative play for any preschooler.
What makes a game developmentally appropriate for preschoolers?
A developmentally appropriate preschool game has: simple rules (explainable in 2–3 sentences), a play time under 20 minutes, sufficient chance that skill level doesn't dominate outcomes, a cooperative or non-eliminating structure (or short elimination periods), and immediate, visible feedback on outcomes. Games that require reading, complex strategy, sustained attention beyond 20 minutes, or perfect rule-following are typically not yet appropriate for ages 3–5.
Related reading: See also our classic games guide and our pretend play guide for more ideas on this topic.
