24 best Fun and Educational Games for Kids
The holiday season is around the corner, and we want to make sure you have the perfect gift for the children in your life! We have taken the guesswork out of gift giving by letting our team of play experts choose the perfect gifts for children of every age. This list features our favourite top games for children of every age! Games are fantastic for learning at any age, but in particular they are especially important for little learners. Research has shown that games are essential for healthy development in early childhood and beyond! Playing games lets children practise what they know, and also what they don’t. It allows them to experiment through trial and error, find solutions to problems, work out the best strategies, and build new confidence and skills.
This list features new games that were released this year and some classic favourites that continue to top lists as favourite games for kids!
The toys on this list are more than just a great gift. They all were hand-picked by our in-house play expert who picked them with the intent to inspire your children’s imaginations, help develop early learning skills, and discover their passions because at Scholar’s Choice we believe children deserve the opportunity to achieve their hopes & dreams through play!
These are our top picks of games for children of every age! Check them out directly at the links below or scroll to read about each individual item.
Pancake Monster by Blue Orange Games
Noodle Knockout Fine Motor Game
Acorn Soup is a perfect first game for any toddler! Making Acorn Soup is easy as 1-2-3!
The round box bottom doubles as a bowl, which contains wooden ingredients and a sturdy wooden spoon for mixing and stirring. Simple recipe cards teach toddlers to identify the ingredients and count as they cook. Mix, stir, eat and play together! Counting, pretend play, sorting, fine-motor skills are benefits of this fun, interactive game!
Recommended Age: 2 +
Peek A Zoo I see you! Can you stack the blocks correctly to match the image? The zoo-animals love playing peekaboo! Can you spy with your little eye where these fun-loving animals need to go? Choose a challenge and try to stack the right cubes as shown on the challenge card.
Peek-A-Zoo is a great educational game for pre-schoolers to practice language skills, learn about colours, animals, and concepts as above, below, inside and outside!
Recommended Age: 2+
Get ready to get up and move! Monkey Around contains 40 cards that prompt players to do movements together - from hugs, to high fives, to simple skills like balancing, hopping, and marching!
Included in the game is a bean bag banana that adds to the fun and learning. A wonderful first board game for kids that was created specifically for as a first game for kids!
Kids love getting to move about while playing a game!
Recommended Age: 2 +
Can you guess who escaped the zoo? Slide an animal card under the board, but don’t let the other players see it! Roll the die to move. Open the Peek-a-boo window on the board to peek at parts of the secret animal. Compete to make your way across the board and guess what animal escaped the zoo. With room for 2-4 players, this game is perfect for game nights.
Recommended Age: 3+
Pancake Monster by Blue Orange Games
Feed the Giant Monster his favorite food, but careful, you never know when he’ll bite back!
Players take turns placing a pancake card inside its mouth, and press the button as many times as there are toppings on the pancake. After a random number of times, the spring mechanism will trigger and the monster will safely pop swallowing the player's arm!
Be the first to stack all your pancakes onto his tongue without the Monster biting you. It’s a chomping good game and it doubles as a pop-up hamper! this game can be played with 2-4 players and is sure to be fun for all.
Recommended Age: 3+
Candy Game
Can you find the right colour coded candy? Candy is a fun and easy visual matching game that has players throw three colour dice and need to find quickly the sweet that matches the colour combination thrown!
There are three variations of playing determine the winner of the game! For 1-8 players this is a game is perfect for young learners.
Recommended Age: 4+
Koala Walla Bing Bang
Work together to help Wally the Koala climb his favorite Eucalyptus tree! Develop gross-motor skills, hand-eye coordination, turn-taking and more. With 2 difficulty levels, this game can easily be adapted for children of all ages. The game's objective is to help Wally get to his food at the top of the tree. If players get Wally to the top, everyone wins!
Children roll numbers on the die to move up the tree. If someone rolls a BANG, that person draws a card and performs the stunt before Wally slides to the ground. If players fail to complete their stunts before Wally hits the ground 3 times, everyone loses. The game includes active stunts to encourage movement! We love this fast paced co-operative game and we hope your children will too.
With 2 difficulty levels, this game can easily be adapted for children of all ages. For 2-6 players!
Recommended Age: 4+
Watch a game play through of Koala Walla with our team here
Best Dressed Banana The Silly Magnetic Dress-Up Game
Are you the best dressed banana of your friends and family? Let’s vote and see! Players will go bananas for this silly magnetic dress-up game! Take turns dressing the bananas and then awarding each banana with a certificate. Choose from silliest banana, most creative, most likely to be a scientist and more in this cooperative game where everyone wins!
This cooperative game encourages players to work together! Players dress up their bananas in the most silly or creative way to earn unique nominations. It allows children to develops creativity, spatial awareness, fine motor skills and cooperation.
For 2 to 4 players
Recommended Age 4+
Tongues Out! by Blue Orange Games
The pugs ate all the lollipops! Luckily their tongues are dyed the color of the lollipop they had! Each turn, try to match two lollipops on the dice with two squishy pugs that you think licked them! When you gently squeeze the little pups, their tongue comes out! No matter how cute these chubby pugs are, they will not get away with this... The first player to match 6 pugs with lollipops’ colors wins the game!
Recommended Age 4+
Watch a game play through of Tongues Out with our team here
Noodle Knockout Fine Motor Game
This fine motor game is a ramen rumble! Build coordination, hand strength, and other fine motor skills as you snag oodles of noodles and toppings to make your bowls of ramen!
Each game also helps kids master early counting and color recognition skills!
Designed for 1-4 players, this 67-piece game has multiple ways to play and learn either solo or with friends!
Recommended Age: 4+
Freeze Dance with Chilly by Blue Orange Games
It’s time to freeze dance with Chilly! Chilly has 5 special songs to sing just for you. Listen to the little penguin’s words, follow what they say… and make sure you freeze when they tell you to!
This interactive game will get everybody up and dancing! From imitating animals to checking the colors you wear… just follow directions to keep up with Chilly!
Songs include Freeze Fun, Animal Freeze, Color Freeze, Active Freeze and as a bonus: The Floor is Lava!
Recommended Age: 4+
Five Crowns is a kid-style rummy card game that the whole family will enjoy! Start each round by flipping over the extra-large wild card to reveal what color crown is wild. Be the first to match all five cards in your hand by color or number and win a treasure chip!
After one player goes out, each player gets one last chance to match what they can. Any unmatched cards earn Robby chips but beware Robby the packrat wants to steal your treasure, so try your best to match all five of your cards! The player with the most treasure chips at the end of the fifth round wins! Five Crowns Junior is much more than your average childrens game this timeless favorite fosters learning and fun for everyone!
Match your hand by color or number to earn treasure chips! It’s educational and fun, teaching critical thinking and math skills while also building self-esteem! It’s an addictive family game that provides great interaction for kids and adults!
For 2 to 6 players.
Recommended Age: 5+
Penguins Rock! Board Game
Race to complete your nest as you discover: Penguins Rock! This simple, fast-moving board game brings hands-on joy to practicing patience and strengthening counting skills.
This beautifully illustrated and glossy game is based on the actual behavior of Gentoo penguins who cooperatively build rock nests with their mates. The aim of the game? Gather your penguins, build up your pebble piles and be the first to waddle them home to build a nest. The twist? Watch out for your competitors, rocks may also be taken from neighbors’ nests!
Skills: Counting, fine motor skills, strategic thinking & patience.
Recommended Ages: 5+
Ghost in the Attic Cooperative Game
Don’t Let the Ghost Escape: While exploring a haunted mansion, two kids and their dog accidentally awakened a ghost living in the attic! Players must work together to keep the ghost from escaping the manor and haunting the rest of the neighborhood!
It’s lights out for this unique board game that you play in the dark (if you so choose)! Featuring a glow-in-the-dark game board and light-up ghost mover, this one-of-a-kind cooperative board game is sure to become a family game night favorite. While playing children learn strategy, shared decision-making and cooperation in this thrilling Peaceable Kingdom board game!
Cooperative games for kids cultivate emotional development, shared decision making, positive self-esteem and creative problem solving while developing a sense of community in a non-stressful play environment.
For 2 - 6 players
Recommended Ages: 5+
Presto Go Pop Game
Race to pop the bubbles! Complete the challenges on the presto Cards and be the first to tap Bubblo to win the round! Players with quick reflexes, excellent eye-hand coordination and a good sense of observation will prevail in this fun party game for the whole family.
Includes 1 Bubblo anti stress squishy
A party & learning game for the whole family
Play the original Go PoP! Game with 4 exclusive Go PoPs!
Ages 6 and up.
Recommended Ages: 6+
Watch a game play through of Presto Go POP with our team here
Astro Trash Game
Astro Trash is a fast paced frenzy board game where players race to rid the "trash" off their planets. Be the first to rid you planet of trash to win!
To get started at the same time, players will roll 3 dice. Each dice will show the color/type of trash, the direction and the number of pieces to pass. Players pass pieces and repeat. The first player to clean their planet wins!
There are so many wonderful educational benefits to this game! Great for developing hand eye coordination and a good social learning game.
Recommended Ages: 6+
Uno Flip Card Game
Love the original version of UNO you are going to flip for Uno Flip! It is everything you love about the original with exciting new twists like a double sided deck and special FLIP card.
Players take turns matching a card in their hand with the current card shown on top of the deck either by color or number. In a race to deplete their hands, players can play special cards to slow their opponents down, like Skips, Reverses and color-changing Wild cards.
UNO FLIP!™ also includes new Action cards that really shake things up, like Draw Five and Skip Everyone cards. Play the special FLIP card and all cards in your hand, the draw pile and draw deck are flipped over to reveal an entirely new set of numbers and colors on the opposite side! The holder of the FLIP card determines whether or not you play on the "light" side or "dark" side of the deck -- and when you switch it back around. Strategize to rattle your competition and be the first to get rid of your cards to win. When you're down to one card, don't forget to shout "UNO!" Colors and decorations may vary.
Recommended Ages: 7+
See the original UNO here
In a labyrinth of soaring towers and deep vaults, witches and wizards scramble to find coveted treasures. They cast powerful spells to teleport and shift the maze in their favor! Whoever collects their treasure first wins in this contest of minds and magic! As with the classic, treasures must be found by skillfully moving the rows of towers to clear a path, but with this 3D labyrinth you have to take into account the tower heights too!
Find new treasures in a moving maze each time, now with three-dimensional gameplay! Benefits of Play – Players learn cause and effect, planning, association, recognition and taking turns. Whoever collects their treasure first wins in this contest of minds and magic!
Recommended Ages: 7+
Think the child in your life would love Labyrinth? Check out the other sets in the collection here
Create a path and jump to the finish! Create a path from start to finish so you can canter over the jumps in the right sequence! Are you on course to solve the 80 challenges? Get on your horse for some puzzling fun!
This 1 player puzzle game allows children to play independently as they build visual comprehension skills!
Recommended Ages: 7+
Venture into a land of fantasy and legend! In this cooperative family role-playing game, each player chooses one of four powerful heroes: the magician, the warrior, the archer, or the dwarf. Your heroic journey begins with a mission to rescue some wolf cubs that are lost in a dangerous mine. But, before embarking on your search, your party must get past Mart, the bridge guard, by completing all of his tasks. Only then will he let your party cross his bridge and enter the mine. However, danger still lurks on the horizon, as a dragon encroaches on the castle Rietburg just as you approach the mine. Should he arrive at the castle before your heroes rescue the wolf cubs, your party will lose the mission — and the game. If your party rescues the cubs first, you win!
Recommended Ages: 7+
Did you live Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza? Then you will love Taco, Puck, Maple, Syrup, Canoe a canadian twist on a classic game.
The entire deck is split between 2-8 players, who then place their individual stack of cards face-down in front of them. Each person takes a turn flipping a card face-up on a pile in the middle while saying the words “Taco,” “Puck,” “Maple,” “Syrup,” “Canoe” — in that order. If the card in the middle matches the word being spoken, the players race to slap their hands down on top of all the cards. Whoever is last must add the entire stack to their own set of cards. The winner is the person who gets rid of all their cards first.
For extra fun, special action cards force players to make certain gestures before racing to slap the deck!
Recommended Ages: 7+
Watch a video of our team playing Taco, Puck, Maple, Syrup, Canoe here
Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.
Recommended Ages: 7+
The Pancake Queen, the Ladybug Queen, and a cast of courtly characters, return with a new mission: save the kings! Play queens to rescue kings from a parade of perilous predicaments. Find a magical companion to aid your quest, but watch out for Wild Gnomes, Sleeping Willows, and the ever-sneaky Switch Witch! Save the most kings and crown yourself the royal hero!
Recommended Ages 8+
See the original Sleep Queen's Card game here
