This part of my Holiday Gift Guide focuses on games. Some of these games make my list each and every year but many are new this year. I even consulted with one of my favorite speech therapists who made some great suggestions that were included this year.
When looking for games, I try and look for a few things. The most important thing is that they are motivating games that the kids will enjoy playing. I also try and find games that will help meet occupational therapy goals, such as improving fine motor or visual motor/perceptual skills. I love to find games that can be adapted for children of different ages and skill sets. This year, I have included a bunch of collaborative games….games that kids work as a team in order to accomplish a mission. I had such fun putting this list together. Check out my favorite games below!
Burger Mania–because I am a total OT nerd, I am a complete sucker for any game that comes with a pair of chopsticks or tweezers. I was in Toys “R” Us the other night and stumbled upon Burger Mania and knew it had to be part of game collection at work. It’s only been a couple of days but every single one of the kids I worked with after and my own daughter can’t get enough of this game. The game comes with a working conveyer belt, the ingredients needed to make burgers, tiny plates, tweezers and cards with pictures of different kinds of burgers that need to be made. Burgers are made by grabbing the ingredients with tweezers!! Whoever makes the most burgers is the winner. There are 3-different speed levels so that the conveyer belt moves faster to make it more challenging as the kids master the game. Great for working on improving fine motor skills such as grasp strength and manipulation skills, improves hand-eye coordination, visual motor and visual perceptual skills and works on improving executive functioning skills like focus, attention, organization and motor planning.
*one of the things I have done to make it easier for some of my younger kids is to have them just make burgers in the order in which you put the ingredients in their storage spots. They are still working on all of the aforementioned goals, but you are taking away the difficulty of following the game cards.
What Letter Do I Start With-I know a game is good when my daughter doesn’t want me to take it to work with me. I was surprised because she usually doesn’t feel that way about educational games! This game is perfect for emerging readers but will entertain older children as well. The point of the game is simple: be the first to find an object on the board that starts with the letter on the card flipped over. Kids have to scan the board, find a matching picture and place their color token on the picture. The first person to get rid of all 10 of their tokens is the winner. This is a fast-paced game that works on letter recognition, visual motor and visual perceptual skills, hand-eye coordination, improves fine motor skills and helps with improving focus, attention and organizational skills.
*whenever possible, I like to work on other goals when playing games with the kids. When playing What Letter Do I Start With with some of my older kids, I will practice handwriting by having them write the name of the object that they found.
Perfection-I’ve had this game in my closet since I began working as an OT approximately a million years ago 😉 and was really bummed when they stopped making the 25-piece game and replaced it with a smaller 9-shape game. Maybe it was all my complaining, but you can now find the original 25-piece game in stores again and I couldn’t be more happy. For those of you who don’t know the game, Perfection is a beat the clock game where you try and match all the shapes before the timer goes off and the board pops up and the shapes go flying. It’s a great game for working on improving visual motor and visual perceptual skills, improves fine motor skills such as grasping and in-hand manipulation skills and works on improving focus, attention and organizational skills.
*some of the adaptations I make while playing the game is to hide the pieces in putty and have the kids find them; this works on increasing grasp strength. For some of my kids, the idea of a timer stresses them out so I will start it after they put a certain number of pieces in.
Tumbling Monkeys-this is another game that continues to make my list year after year because it continues to be a hit with my kids at work. This game is similar to Kerplunk, but instead of marbles, there are monkeys. Once you put the tree together (a great fine motor activity!), kids roll the dice and pull out the stick of the same color and see what happens. While the rules of the game say that the winner is the person with the fewest monkeys I play so they have to rescue as many of them as possible. This is particularly helpful with the younger kids I work with who don’t have the clinical reasoning and understanding quite yet. In addition to being great for working on developing grasping skills, it also works on improving hand-eye coordination, visual motor and perceptual skills and can work on improving executive functioning skills like focus, attention, organization and planning skills.
*one way I adapt this game is having the kids use Zoo Sticks to pull the sticks out of the game instead of their fingers. It’s a nice way to sneak in some hand strengthening in while having some fun!
Getting Ready to Write Gumball Grab-this is a great game for preschoolers. Kids can practice sorting and matching skills while building up the strength in their hands using the special grabbers (you know how I feel about games that come with any kind of tweezer/grabbers/etc!). Gumball Grab comes with a bubble gum machine, 4 game boards, different colored “gumballs”, cards and grabbers. Each card has directions to either add or remove gumballs to their game board. The first person to fill their gumball machine is the winner. In addition to working on improving grasp strength and manipulation skills, this game is great for working on improving hand-eye coordination, visual motor and visual perceptual skills, motor planning and organizational skills and improved focus and attention. It also is a nice way to introduce kids to colors and numbers.
*for the really young kids, I remove the cards that have them take gumballs off of their board so they can be more successful and also helps move the game along a little quicker for those kids who have difficulty with focus and attention.
Silly Street-I love finding games that throw in some gross motor activities, especially for the younger kids I work with. I have found that adding movement to games helps improve focus, attention and organizational skills. There are so many things about this game but it starts with the game set-up: you have to put together a giant 6-piece puzzle! Kids flip over cards with different kinds of directions on them; it can be to find something on the board, do a silly gross motor activity and several other kinds of challenges. The people who created Silly Street had a goal of helping kids develop a variety of skills including social skills, communication skills, creativity, resilience and confidence. Additionally, it works on improving fine motor skills, visual motor and perceptual skills, motor planning and organizational skills and focus and attentional skills. When I used this in my social skills group, I had the kids work in groups of 2 to also work on encouraging teamwork while playing a game.
*I truly love this game but found it hard to follow the “street” on the game board. I resolved that by taking a thick black Sharpie marker and outlining the street making it easier for the kids to follow.
Animal Act-A Silly Street Character-Builder Game-it’s not an unusual thing for me to buy several games by the same game makers because if one is a hit, it’s pretty likely the other one will be a hit as well. Animal Act is from the makers of Silly Street (recommended above) and combines verbal and physical communication and encourages bravery and creativity while playing. Kids roll the die and draw a card and then given some kind of challenge: they may need to act, sing, mime to their audience….if the audience guesses correctly, you earn a ticket. Kids move around the gameboard collecting tickets to fill their playbill. The first player to fill their playbill is the winner. In addition to all the aforementioned goals of the game, kids can work on improving motor planning, organizational skills, problem solving and increasing overall body strength.
Dr. Seuss Thing Two and Thing One Whirly Fun Game-who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss and all of his characters?? This is a great collaborative game for younger children. Kids work together to clean up a mess before their mother gets home. The game starts by launching a top into the living room. Kids take turn picking cards and following the action shown. The game ends as soon as mother reaches the last space . If all the furniture is on a spot, the players win. Great for working on hand-eye coordination, visual motor and visual perceptual skills, improves fine motor and manipulation skills and improves focus and attention. I like that there are also physical challenges mixed in with the cards so kids can work on improving gross motor skills, motor planning and organizational skills.
Yeti In My Spaghetti-another one of those simple games that quickly become a favorite of mine and the kids. The game consists of a bowl, a plastic yeti and a bunch of pieces of plastic spaghetti. Place the spaghetti pieces over the bowl, put the yeti on top and start playing. The goal of the game: take a piece of spaghetti off without letting the yeti fall into the bowl. Great for working on improving grasping and manipulation skills, hand-eye coordination, motor planning and organizational skills and focus and attentional skills.
*I like to throw in a dice so the kids roll the dice and then have to take however many pieces they roll. I also will have them try and remove the spaghetti pieces using kids chopsticks to work on improving grasp strength while playing.
Getting Ready to Write Gumball Grab-this is a great game for preschoolers. Kids can practice sorting and matching skills while building up the strength in their hands using the special grabbers (you know how I feel about games that come with any kind of tweezer/grabbers/etc!). Gumball Grab comes with a bubble gum machine, 4 game boards, different colored “gumballs”, cards and grabbers. Each card has directions to either add or remove gumballs to their game board. The first person to fill their gumball machine is the winner. In addition to working on improving grasp strength and manipulation skills, this game is great for working on improving hand-eye coordination, visual motor and visual perceptual skills, motor planning and organizational skills and improved focus and attention. It also is a nice way to introduce kids to colors and numbers.
*for the really young kids, I remove the cards that have them take gumballs off of their board so they can be more successful and also helps move the game along a little quicker for those kids who have difficulty with focus and attention.
Last Letter-another game for the older crowd (suggested age is 8 and older). In this card game, you have to come up and shout out a word from one of the picture cards that you are holding. Sounds easy, right? This is where it gets tricky….the word that you call out must start with the last letter of the word that was previously said. The first person to get rid of all of their cards wins the game.
*if you are playing this 1:1 in a therapy session, you can add a handwriting challenge to the game and have them write out the words after they should the word out.
Mole Rats In Space-for my social skills group, I like to find games for the kids to play that will not only be fun but may also encourage them to work together to win a game. Often times, the kids I work with are so competitive and not good about winning OR losing so finding collaborative games helps develop important social skills. Peaceable Kingdom has a ton of great these kinds of games to choose from. In Mole Rats In Space, kids work together to collect equipment and escape the station before you’re bitten by a snake or time runs out. Kids flip over cards and have to follow the directions: they may need to move you or your teammate, move snakes around or add a new snake to the board. Avoid getting bitten by a snake and having to return to start or even worse. This game is geared towards older children (7 and older) and could be a great addition to a family game collection. Great for working on improving focus, attention and organizational skills, motor planning and working as a team to accomplish a goal.
Cauldron Quest-another collaborative game by Peaceable Kingdom. The purpose of this game is to work with your teammates to create a potion to break the spell. Find the hidden ingredients before the wizard blocks all of the paths and you all win. Great game for working on improving social skills, problem solving, organizational skills and focus/attentional skills. Additionally, kids can work on improving fine motor skills such as grasping skills and improves visual motor and visual perceptual skills.
Crazy Letters-another fun game the whole family could enjoy. Crazy Letters from MindWare is a fast-paced word game where players try and be the first to figure out what the word on the card is supposed to be. The word may be written backwards, letters may be flipped upside down or on their side. There are no extra letters in the word and the letters are in the correct order (not scrambled). The first person to collect 20 cards is the winner. There are over 500 cards with a variety of categories; player rolls the dice to determine what category they take. This game is great for working on focus and attention, organizational skills, improves visual motor and visual perceptual skills
*if you are using this therapeutically, you can have the players work on handwriting skills by having them write the words out as they are playing.
It was really hard to not include a dozen more games in this list! There are just so many great games out there these days. Does your family have a favorite game? I would love to hear what games others are playing these days. If you are looking for a specific kind of game or would like some suggestions for your children, I would be more than happy to help you out. I am only a click away and love hearing from you all!