20+ Favorite Games to Play With Kindergartners

Playing games is essential for kids of all ages. From birth to adolescence, kids need to spend most of their time playing beneficial games and activities to have excellent physical and mental health and learn core life skills.

Even though kids of all ages need contributing games to play, younger kids might benefit more from playing games and activities than older kids. Especially for kindergarteners, playing beneficial games and activities helps them achieve their social, linguistic, and cognitive milestones and build closer relationships with their parents and teachers.

Providing various play opportunities is essential for parents and teachers to support their kids’ development. So as a parent or teacher, you need plenty of fun and entertaining games to play with your kids. In this blog, we’ve aimed to help you find the best games to play with kindergartners. We are sure that these games will be your kindergartner’s favorites!

Let’s dive in!

Indoor Games to Play With Kindergartners

Kindergartners need to spend quality time playing contributing games both outdoors and indoors. Considering these kids are new to spending a lot of time in kindergarten, it is best to keep them entertained at home with a basic and fun indoor game to play. That way, they won’t be too bored spending time indoors.

In addition, playing indoor games and indoor activities for kids is a great opportunity for parents to bond deeply with their kids and observe their social and cognitive skills. Let’s get straight to the point and check out these fun indoor games to play with your kindergartner!

1. Number Matching

Number matching is a simple yet beneficial indoor game to play with kids. As the game is challenging but not intimating, it helps kids enjoy learning basic math subjects and improves their number recognition skills.

All you need is a piece of paper and a pen. You can put numbers on a piece of paper in an improper order and ask your kids to put them in numerical order. Alternatively, you can get creative and design number cards with your kids.

2. MentalUP

Designed by scientists, educators, and game developers, MentalUP offers the best indoor educational games to play with kindergartners. MentalUP, which is one of the best apps for 5 year olds, includes more than 150 games and activities, each designed considering kids' age, academic level, and needs.

Include these MentalUP games in your kid’s schedule for 20 minutes a day and help them develop effectively!

In addition to contributing to kids' cognitive skills with scientifically designed games and activities, the MentalUP app offers many benefits that other games are not able to provide.

If your kids complete their daily plan, let’s check out how MentalUP can help you discover your child's potential and support their development:

• Safe learning environment: One of the best apps for kindergarten, MentalUP, doesn’t contain ads, pop-ups, external links, or inappropriate content. So it provides a safe and entertaining learning environment for kids of all ages. Also, with its screen time feature, you can limit your kid’s screen time as you wish.
• Variety of games and activities: MentalUP offers a vast range of brain training games and activities, such as memory, concentration, visualization, and logical thinking games. You can choose from puzzles, matching, counting, musical games, and more. Also, you can keep your children active with MentalUP’s physical exercises for kids.
• A trustable source for practicing skills: MentalUP is trusted by over 10 million users, including parents, teachers, and kids all around the world. So it is the right source to support kids' cognitive skills and overall learning ability with entertaining games and activities.
• Advanced performance tracking platform: The MentalUP app tests kids' creativity, problem solving, attention, logical thinking, and much more in a fun way and provides rich reporting modules and dashboards accordingly. So you can track your kid’s development and provide them with beneficial content.
• Fun and educational games to play anytime, anywhere: MentalUP turns devices into educational toys. You can use MentalUP on your smartphone, tablet, or PC to expand your kid’s skills.

3. Collecting Balloons

As kids love playing with balloons, this is one of the best and easiest games to make and play with kindergartners. All you need is some safe and colorful balloons.

You can blow up some balloons in different colors and sizes. Then, simply ask your kids to collect the ones with the same colors or group the balloons according to their color and size.

This classic game is simple but beneficial for kids. It supports kids' color recognition, categorization, visual perception, and attention skills. Also, this balloon game improves kids’ physical development by keeping them active.

4. Balance Beam Game

Balance beam games contribute to kids in many ways. They improve balance and coordination skills and help them build vestibular balance, movement coordination, and concentration by teaching them to understand their body’s center of gravity.

Still, you don't need a balance beam set to play balance beam games. All you need is masking tape and an open place to play.

Just make a straight line on the floor with a piece of masking tape and treat the tape as a balance beam. You can ask your kids to walk across the tape forward or backward with their arms out.

5. Hide and Seek

You’ve probably heard this classic game before and played hide and seek with your parents and friends. Hiding and finding is a common interest of small children. Thus, it is worth giving it a chance as a fun game to play with kindergartners.

The playing process is crystal clear. You choose someone to close their eyes, count to a certain number, and find the others.

The hide and seek game is beneficial as it helps children develop gross motor skills and encourages their physical development. Also, as a form of exercise, it promotes muscle development, builds strength, and improves the coordination between the brain and limbs.

6. Jenga

Jenga is a game that needs no introduction. It is possibly the best board game you can play with your kids and family. Building a Jenga tower is actually not only a simple indoor activity. It is a beneficial board game that contributes to kids’ manual dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and balance.

In addition to that, playing with Jenga can affect kids’ ability to work in teams positively, help them learn math, science, and creativity skills, and even strengthen their bonds with friends and family. You know the rules. Build your Jenga tower and have fun trying not to demolish it.

Outdoor Games to Play With Kindergartners

Kids need to get active with outdoor games to stay both mentally and physically healthy. Playing outdoor games benefits kids’ physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development and keeps them healthier.

Thus, as much as you need games to play with kindergartners in classroom or at home, you need outdoor games to play too. Here are the best outdoor games to play with your kindergartners, so have fun!

1. Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt can be played both indoors and outdoors. Still, when it is played as an outdoor game, especially in nature, it helps kids discover the environment around them and improve their naturalistic skills by teaching them about plants, insects, and soil.

As kindergartners’ literacy skills are not enough to read a written list, you can start by asking them to find some objects. For example, you can say, “Find a butterfly, a bug, and a flower.” Then, you can give them a certain amount of time to find these objects.

Spending time outdoors with this game will be your kid’s favorite and will boost their observation skills in a relaxed and natural way.

2. Bean Bag Music Freeze

As an alternative to the classic game music freeze, the bean bag music freeze game is a fun and creative way to support kids’ listening and self-regulation skills.

All you need is a bean bag and some music to put on. The process is simple: kids start throwing the bean bag at one another when the music starts playing and freeze when the music stops.

Also, you can add some challenging details to the process, such as jumping or turning around until the music stops. This way, it will become one of the most entertaining pe games.

3. Parachute Game

A parachute is an essential tool for outdoor games. This parachute game is one of the best alternative outdoor games to play with kindergartners. All you need is a playing parachute and some light objects, like balls or popcorn.

The parachute game is a great opportunity to spend time as a family or invite over some friends. Then, you can divide everyone into teams and ask them to grab a handle on the parachute.

Players should shake the handles and pop the items off. At the end of the game, the team with the most color left wins! These kinds of outdoor games to play with kindergarteners are great for supporting kids’ physical and mental development.

Still, they can't spend time outside all the time in winter.

4. Hopscotch

Hopscotch is a timeless classical game to play with kindergartners. Also, it is a great opportunity to support kids’ number recognition and early math and balance skills.

If you are looking for games to make and play with kindergartners, hopscotch is the right one. Just use some chalk to make a hopscotch grid and pick a rock to toss.

Then, you can put the numbers on the squares and start having fun with your kid by tossing the rock, jumping on the numbers, and sipping the number with the rock on it.

5. Cardboard Box Castle

A cardboard box is a great material for games to make and play with kindergartners. This simple cardboard box game is great for imaginative play and supporting your kid’s artistic skills.

All you need to do is cut three or four rectangular notches into the top edge of a cardboard box to form the castle ramparts.

Then you can add ovalish doors, windows, and even a bridge and let your kids decorate it and play as they wish.

Games to Play With Kindergartners in the Classroom

Starting kindergarten is an exciting milestone for kids and parents. Throughout kindergarten, kids learn early literacy and math skills, improve their social skills, and learn how to express themselves better.

To support these development stages, teachers need to come up with fun and entertaining games to play with kindergarteners in the classroom. Now, it’s time for kindergarten teachers to expand their repertoire a bit more with these best games to play with kindergartners in the classroom.

1. Card Games

Playing card games with kindergartners is a simple, easy, and effective way to teach them about strategic thinking and arithmetics shape recognition, and support their social skills.

Card games, like snap, old donkey, slapjack, crazy eights, and cheat, help kids develop strong fine motor skills in their early childhood and support their emotional intelligence.

2. Indoor Bowling

Indoor bowling makes it possible to have fun bowling, even on rainy or cold days. Playing bowling supports crucial hand-eye coordination skills and helps kids gain depth perception.

If you need an additional activity to teach your kindergartners about numbers and keep them busy, you can get creative and get them to design their own bowling set.

All you need is a cardboard box, some safe adhesives, and creativity. You can help kids make the pins and customize your indoor bowling set according to their counting and sorting skills.

3. Row Your Boat

This game is a must-include for every kindergarten teacher’s plan. The game is actually recommended by educators to teach movement control to kindergartners and help them get used to teamwork.

You can start by pairing two kids up and sitting them on the floor with their knees up to their chest as they hold each other’s hands. Then kids can sing the “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” song and rock back and forth while singing.

During the game, kids will need to work together and watch their movements all the time. This process will challenge them to practice their listening, attention, concentration, and language skills and strengthen their fine and gross motor skills.

4. Simon Says

Simon Says is a traditional and classic game that kids love to play with their friends. As one of the best relay games to play with kindergartners, Simon Says is great for supporting kids’ attention skills and encouraging their leadership skills.

To teach your kindergarten kids how to play the game, you can start as Simon in the first round and then let your kids choose in other rounds. The rest of the players gather around in a circle in front of Simon and try to listen to Simon’s calls to action.

Kids only do the action when Simon starts the sentence with “Simon Says..” The game requires kids to pay close attention and motivates kids to listen closely.

Why Do You Need Games to Play With Kindergartners?

Games are fantastic sources for supporting kids’ learning processes and development at any age, but they are particularly important for young learners like kindergartners.

Spending time playing structured or unstructured games lets kids test their knowledge, experiment through trial and error, and build new confidence and skills.

In addition to that, other benefits of high-quality games to play with kindergarteners can be listed as the following:

• Let kids use their creativity while nurturing their imagination, physical, cognitive, and emotional strength, and proficiency in skills.
• Help kids interact and engage in the world around them.
• Offer kids to create and explore a world that they can master, conquering their fears.
• Support their developmental skills and boost confidence and resilience.
• Allow kids to learn how to work, negotiate, share, learn self-advocacy skills, and resolve disputes.
• Help parents and teachers build closer relationships with their kids.