Favorite Board Games for 3-Year-Olds

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Recently, our family has gotten really into family board games! My son just turned 3 and one of the things I really went all out on for his birthday was board games. I got him several games and we have been playing them all the time since. Board games are a great way to connect with your child, work on math and reasoning skills, practice following rules and taking turns, and learn about sportsmanship. I feel there is so much value in learning these skills at home before playing competitively against other children.

This post shares my favorite board games for 3-year-olds. Some of these are newer games while others are classics you likely know from your childhood such as Candyland. Some are competitive while others are cooperative games. I love that there are more cooperative games these days as they foster teamwork and can be very helpful in learning to lose or win together for children who might struggle with competitive aspects. Now, in no particular order, here are our favorite games to play with our 3-year-old!

First Orchard

I highly recommend this game as a first game for a toddler. You can even start this one at 2! In my opinion, it is the best board game for a 2-year-old. We tried a few others but this one is straightforward and enjoyable to play. Playing it taught my son the basics of board games: taking turns, following simple rules, sometimes we win (it is a cooperative game) and other times not, moving pieces on the board. The premise is simple: you roll a die which tells you if you can harvest fruit or if the raven moves. You want to harvest all your fruit before the raven gets to the end. It is a game of mostly chance though there is a bit of strategy in what you choose if you roll where you can pick any fruit. We usually do beat the raven, but not every time.

Guess in Ten Junior

We also introduced this game before 3, but it is recommended for 3+. Both my husband and I really enjoy this game. The idea is similar to 20 questions but it is 10 questions, most of which are guided by the cards. No reading is required but the cards instead show photos of what questions to ask. For example, it might show photos of different numbers of feet or different habitats to guide asking those questions. There are a few free questions as well where you formulate your own question. We loved it so much we have been talking about getting the non-junior version for the adults! We started this one playing on teams but now my son can play on his own as well.

Candyland

Alright, you’ve almost certainly played this one so I won’t go into much detail. This is my least favorite of the games we have to play BUT I do think it is a valuable introduction to games on an actual board and a certain type of competition. It introduces you to the frustration of being sent back to the beginning, for example. I recommend this as a first game moving on an actual board since there isn’t much else to work on at the same time: it is colors, not counting for example. I also like that here my daughter can pull cards as well and “play” since it is truly all random.

Chutes and Ladders

This game is similar to Candyland but it involves a spinner and counter instead of color cards. I would recommend introducing Candyland first as it is simpler. Even though my son is confident in counting, it is easier to move to the next color and I think that made it easier for him to get used to the idea of moving on a board when we played Candyland v. Chutes and Ladders. The version we have is called Snakes and Ladders because I wanted a dinosaur one! Like Candyland, this is also a competitive game.

Hoot Owl Hoot

This might be my favorite of these games to play. It is technically recommended for 4+ but I found my just-turned-3-year-old can play it quite well. It is similar in structure to Candyland where you are pulling color cards and moving on the board, but it is a cooperative game and requires a little strategy. It is similar to First Orchard in that your goal is to complete something before something else happens: here get all the little owls home before the sun rises. You can adjust the challenge with how many owls you use. We have started with fewer owls to get used to the game. Owls can skip over other owls if they are on the same color which adds a really fun strategic element.

Count Your Chickens

This is another cooperative game for 3-year-olds where you move on the board to complete a task before something else happens. Here you want to get all the little chicks home before you get to the end of the board. You spin the spinner, find where you are to move and count the spaces you moved. You can move that many little chicks into the coop. Some of the spaces allow you to take an extra chick home. If you get a fox though you lose a chick! My favorite part of this game is it actually has some counting above 5! I find most games count to 5 at most but this one you can end up counting to at least 15.

Hi Ho Cherry O

This is definitely my favorite of the more classic games. It involves a spinner to spin and see how much fruit you can pick up or you have to put back. Newer versions also have an option to make this a cooperative game which can be nice if you are in a stage where competitive games are not so fun for your family. We have been playing it as a competitive game though and it is straightforward and enjoyable. It has a counting element with one-to-one correspondence moving the fruits. The counting is only to 4 but one-to-one correspondence when counting is such an important early math skill so it is great to work on here if your child struggles with it!

Sneaky Snacky Squirrel

This is similar in many ways to Hi Ho Cherry O but with some fun twists! Here the goal is to collect every color acorn in your stump before anyone else. You spin to determine which color acorn you get to take or you might spin the wind which means you have to put your acorns back… or you might spin a sneaky squirrel which means you get to steal someone else’s acorn! This game involves squirrel-shaped tongs which add a fun fine motor element. One major bonus on this one is that, though it has small pieces, the box is part of the game keeping everything contained! This is really helpful in not losing pieces and keeping little siblings safe!

Other Games

This post shares our favorite board games to play with our 3-year-old but there are some other great games we have as well. We have a numbers bingo where we draw a number and he has to count each spot on his board to see if he can put a token on any of them. They also make an alphabet one but since he is really solid on the alphabet this made more sense for us. My one complaint is I would rather draw the cards with the pictures and have the board have the numerals. It involves a lot of counting each time to check multiple spots on the board whether they have the right number.

We also have a dinosaur dominos game. There are all sorts of domino games for different interests. The idea here is to match up different dinosaurs. We don’t play this a ton but it can be a fun game to play with a toddler!

Memory games are another fun option for a 3-year-old where you have to try to remember where the matching card is. My son has an alphabet stack he likes playing memory games with!

That is our list of favorite board games for a 3-year-old! Do you have any other favorites? Which will you be trying?