Who Decides the Age Limit Anyway?

Every game you buy has an age limit printed on it, which I know applies to how cognitively developed you need to be to be able to grasp the rules and purpose of the game but there are so many games that can be used with little kids to add a bit of variety and challenge to their/our everyday lives:

• "Boggle": shake it up and see what letters your child can find. K started out only being able to identify one or two letters, but now knows almost the whole alphabet and begs me to play the "Letters Game"


• "Monkeys in a Barrel": we just recently discovered how fun this is for a 2.5 year old! K will use one to pick up the others one-by-one, or have me hold the monkey chain while he adds more to it. It's fun watching his mind work as he finds places to hold his chain such as cabinet doors, and as he works on coordination. C is content to just chew on the few monkeys we send his way.


• "Jenga": we build towers all the time.


• Good old fashioned cards. My husband and I play "Egyptian Rat Screw" and K walked in on one of our games. He now loves to sit and take turns flipping over cards into a pile. I can see the fine motor skills developing as he tries to flip over one card at a time.

All of these, and so many more games can be adapted based on age, cognitive development and temperament. The best part is, you probably have several games in your closet that can be used for an afternoon of fun with little ones.