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Board Games for 3 Year Olds

December 12, 2023

Have you been looking for some board games to show to your young ones? Are you specifically on the lookout for the best games for 3 year olds? Well, you have come to the right place as we have many fun, entertaining and educating games to offer you! The games you will find on our list are all available from the age of 3, and are guaranteed fun for the whole family!

Every kid is naturally different, and some of your children may take to some games more so than others. Never fear, though, as there are plenty of board games that your 3-year-olds can play and enjoy under your supervision. Here is a list of the top choices parents have leaned towards time and again. Some of these games you have already played yourself when you were 3!

Let’s Go Fishin

Every parent knows the importance of hand-eye coordination skills and how crucial they are for developing children. Why not practice them in a fun way with Pressman’s Let’s Go Fishin’ board game? It’s the same original timeless classic for 1-4 players, where your children must use their fishing poles to catch the most fish in the pond, and that your 3-year-olds will definitely enjoy.

Just like you do in your adulthood with your friends on a fishing trip! All joking aside, you know how this goes: the fish open and close their mouths constantly, and therein lies the challenge for your kids – they must be fast enough and time their throws carefully. There are 21 fish and four poles, so there’s plenty to go around. The game is perfectly suitable for ages 3+, and is among the best board games for 3 year olds you can buy.

Buy Let’s Go Fishin on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Don’t Spill the Beans

We all know the suspense balancing games provide to young children, and Hasbro Gaming’s Don’t Spill The Beans is a great addition to this ever-growing collection of board games for 3 year olds. The game literally explains itself, so there’s no manual or complicated rules involved – you will see how your children instinctively know what to do and experiment with just how many jellybeans can fit in the jar without spilling.

Don’t Spill The Beans is a modernized version of a timeless classic, so all generations can join in the fun. Just remember to take turns when filling the jellybean jar, as your young ones won’t appreciate you cutting them out of the fun! That’s an important social skill to teach your children, and a game of Don’t Spill The Beans is a perfect opportunity just for that!

Buy Don’t Spill The Beans on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Candy Land: Kingdom of Sweet Adventures

Hasbro Gaming’s Candy Land: Kingdom of Sweet Adventures is a fun and colorful way of introducing your sweethearts to the critical development skills of color matching, taking turns, and being a good sport. There are no real winners or losers in candy land. It’s all about having a grand old sweet time! The rules are so easy, even kids who don’t know how to read can play it, and this really is the point, isn’t it.

The reason why this game is considered on the top of the best board games for 3 year olds is because it’s literally timeless. I’m sure that most of you remember the fun you had playing one game or two of Candy Land. So why not introduce your children to this fun and sweet new edition by playing and having fun together? It sounds like the perfect family night, doesn’t it?

Buy Candy Land on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Don’t Break The Ice

Hasbro Gaming’s Don’t Break The Ice sets your children on a quest to help Phillip the Penguin finish his igloo by chopping the ice he’s standing on into building blocks. But they better be careful not to make Phillip fall in the water – it’s freezing! To do that, they must each take turns carefully tapping the ice with their picks.

It’s easy at the start, but the more they progress through the game, the higher the chance Phillip will go for a chilly swim below! Your kids will be in constant suspense and excitement, wondering when will Phillip fall. When he does (eventually) fall – the player that caused it goes out! The board is then reset, and the remaining players go back at it. The last player that didn’t make Phillip fall wins the game!

Buy Don’t Break The Ice on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Disney Princess Matching

Anyone with a little baby girl (such as myself) knows how obsessed with Disney Princesses little girls can be. So, if you want to cool that passion just a little, then look no further than Wonder Forge’s Disney Princess Matching Game. Like any matching game, it’s surprisingly fun and easy to play, which makes it one of the best board games for 3 year olds, especially little girls. Additionally, it develops crucial development skills, like memory, concentration, and of course – their matching skills.

The game incudes 72 beautiful tiles featuring all the popular Disney princesses, including Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida and others. Wonder Forge’s Disney Princess Matching Game offers a solo and a cooperative experience, which makes it perfect for a fun family activity!

Buy Disney Princess Matching on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Have you ever played Hungry Hungry Hippos as a kid? I’m sure you have fond memories as a child, competing against each other for which Hippopotamus is the most gluttonous. Well, now you can introduce your own kids with the same kinds of fun with Hasbro Gaming’s Hungry Hungry Hippos Dino Edition. Yes, there’s an awesome twist – they’ll be playing with triceratops instead of hippos. You still get the same fruit devouring action, only more awesome! Who doesn’t like dinosaurs?! It even comes with a bonus game, in which whoever’s dino chomps the pink fruit while still devouring all the other ones wins the game!

Buy Hungry Hungry Hippos on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Hi Ho! Cherry-O

Does your kid enjoy the taste of oranges, apples, cherries and blueberries? If so, Hasbro Gaming’s Hi Ho! Cherry-O is just the game for you-o! Introduce your kid to a timeless classic, updated with more color, fun models and illustrations, all the while helping in the development of key skills for your child. The game has simple, accessible rules and contains several gameplay elements: a fun puzzle element, a spinning wheel, and of course – the fruit picking. Whoever fills his bucket with fruits first gets to be the winner. The kids will have so much fun with these mini-games they won’t even realize they will be counting and subtracting the fruits, developing key math and logical skills. What a fun way to learn!

Buy Hi Ho! Cherry-O on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Pop-Up Pirate

Yarrr! Here comes one the best board game for 3 year oldsout tharrrr! Introducing TOMY Pop Up Pirate, where swashbuckling is a blast! While I’ve never played this particular game as I child, seeing it now brings back the same spark in my eyes when I watched its commercials on the TV. Back then, games were not as accessible, but now you have no excuse not to introduce your kid to the pirate-popping fun of TOMY Pop Up Pirate. The gist is simple – you get to stab a barrel with plastic scimitarrrs, until you hit just the right spot to make the pirate go pop! And that’s it. There are no winners or losers – everyone gets to have fun! Each playthrough is different, because every slot will be different, giving you extra levels of suspense and excitement.

Buy Pop-Up Pirate on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Boggle Junior

Hasbro Gaming’s Boggle Junior is the light version of the instant classic word recognition game Boggle. It’s the perfect game for developing letter and word recognition, word-building, spelling, memory, creativity, and especially matching pictures with their words. It features large colorful cubes and picture cards, which makes it highly interactive and easy to understand – perfect for a fun family night that will also be an educational experience for all the kids involved. The cards include pictures of various animals, colors and everyday items, providing a large learning spectrum. Give your kid the gift of education and spelling in a fun way!

Buy Boggle Junior on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Elefun

It’s time for some EleFun with Hasbro Gaming’s fun butterfly-catching game! It features a cute elephant that blows his trunk to shoot out butterflies, which the players must then catch and compete who will collect the most! It’s definitely an exercise which will bound to exhaust at least some of your kids’ boundless amounts of energy! It’s fully motorized, so it does require 4 1.5V C-type batteries to run, but those are not hard to come by. When playtime is over, the game is easily stored right in the box or any container of your choice.

Buy Elefun on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Monopoly Junior Dinosaur Edition

You wouldn’t normally connect the complicated world of Monopoly with 3 year olds – all the complicated math, the context, the punishment for making a wrong decision. Not so with Hasbro Gaming’s Monopoly Junior Dinosaur Edition – one of the best board games for 3 year olds. It features the always favorite amongst children dinosaur theme, where they have to feed them leafy banknotes instead – definitely worth the deposit. It’s an amazingly lighthearted take on the board game classing, which is also a very fun way for your kids to learn all the different kinds of dinosaurs, like the triceratops, iguanodon, pterodactyl, stegosaurus, the fan-favorite T-Rex and many others.

Buy Monopoly Junior Dinosaur Edition on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Guess Who? Junior!

Learning about all the animals is a great way to interact with your kids! Why not develop their logical and detective skills too? How can you do both at once? Easy, with Hasbro Gaming’s Guess Who? Junior! Each player will have to guess all sorts of animals by examining a limited number of clues, which in this case will be the animal’s features. The game comes with two difficulty levels – beginner and advanced, which makes is long-lasting and fun for longer! The advanced level includes a fun investigation game, in which players will have to roll a die which will determine how many clues they get.

Buy Gues Who? Junior! on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Go Fish

Continuum Games’ take on the classic Go Fish board game is an excellent way to foster reinforce your kids’ social interaction skills and strategic thinking. It’s also a great introduction to card games, as it will challenge them to remember the fun game rules, read numbers and be patient while other take turns. Any parent knows it’s never too early to teach their kids patience and understanding. The colorful, sturdy game box includes a deck of 48 cards, along with instructions for not just one, but three game modes for extra variety and fun! If you still haven’t thought of a present for your kids – this will be a great addition for a novice board gamer.

Buy Go Fish on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Chutes and Ladders

Chutes and Ladders has always been one of my fondest games while I was a child – its unpredictable nature always kept me on edge, but I always had fun going up or down the ladders. Introduce the same kind of fun to your kids with Hasbro Gaming Chutes and Ladders: Peppa Pig Edition. As the name suggests, it features everyone’s favorite Peppa Pig and all her companions! It features a vibrantly cored game board and models, and having a gameplay that requires 0 reading makes it one of the best board games for 3 year olds and up – perfect for both boys and girls. Just throw the dice and prepare to climb your way to the top!

Buy Chutes and Ladders on Amazon US / Amazon UK

Monkey Around

An excellent choice for the best board games for kids for 3 year olds ever, Peaceable Kingdom’s Monkey Around: The Giggle and Wiggle game is a multi-award-winning board game that develops reading, hand-eye coordination, spatial concepts, balancing, social and emotional awareness, and pretend play.

The gameplay is very easy and interactive – you draw a monkey card, read the action, do the action, then put in on the tree. When you fill the tree with fun monkey friends the game ends, but there’s nothing stopping you from doing it again and again, until you get tired of it. The many different cards provide hours of fun, and the game even includes a stuffed banana to help you with gameplay.

Buy Monkey Around on Amazon US / Amazon UK