Family Games with Toddlers and Siblings Under Five
The holiday season is here, and for many of us, it means family time. Walks if the weather is good, family meals and board games.. wait! board games with a toddler?! Nah! It’s hard to convince a toddler that destroying a board game is not the best way to have fun with it! So what family games can be played in a family with little kids? I want to share a few that we found work for us! It’s lovely to be able to have fun all together playing them.
Hide and seek
Classical
A classical option is when one person turns away and counts till let’s say five and the rest of the people hide. This is fun and the toddler can join in with one of the adults. However, in many houses, this may not be the best option as places to hide are limited.
Variation
The way we like to play “hide and seek” is role play with our dolls and teddy bears. Instead of our hiding, we hide teddies and one ted with support of one person has to look for them. First of all, we have lots of fun hiding teddies and looking for new creative ways to do it. We do not try to do it too well, but we do it in a funny way and in funny places so that adults can have a laugh while kids can enjoy looking for them. Our kids are not always patient enough to wait until we find all the teddies, they often join in helping to find them even if they know where everyone is hidden. It’s a relaxed and fun game with lots of potential for role-playing and it’s our kids’ favorite!
Pass the Parcel
Classical
In the classical game, a parcel is passed in a circle between people while music is playing. Once the music stops the person who has the parcel unwraps the top wrapping and gets a present. Then the game continues. It requires one person to be a music DJ and watch out for everyone to get a gift. Kids love it because they love unwrapping and love gifts! It does teach them a little patience while the parcel is being passed or when it stops with someone else.
Variations
Anything that involves unwrapping and gifts is great fun for little (and even not so little!) kids. So this could be simplified in wrapping and unwrapping presents, role play that the present is for favorite teddy or even having boxes instead of wrapping paper and hiding various toys inside the boxes.
Sleeping bunnies
Classical
In the classical game, this song is used that first tells little bunnies to sleep and then they wake up and hop. Kids love to pretend to sleep and then to “wake up” and jump around as the song goes!
Variations
Any game where we pretend to sleep and then wake up has great success with our kids. One of the options is to pretend to sleep and then one person does rooster crowing and everyone wakes up. We play that we are quite unhappy to wake up and send the rooster away. But every time we fall asleep the rooster comes back and crows! Kids don’t want to stop playing after twenty-plus times on repeat! They absolutely love it!
We also play with my daughter pretending to sleep together and then one of us snores and wakes the others up. Adding some fun facial expressions and emotions makes it a lot of fun! Little boy loves all the sounds and facial expressions too and enjoys being around and joining in with the play as well.
Dancing
We also enjoy dancing with our kids. They often ask for it and invite us to dance altogether. We use our Yoto player for music the most. (Read more about it here). But sometimes we also watch “Strictly Come Dancing” together, dance along with celebrities, and score each other pretending to be the judges.
I hope you will have an enjoyable family time playing these games. Please add in the comments any games you found work well with little kids!