Here are many games for children of 6 years, fun and challenging. At this age, play is important: to consolidate what you learn at school, to learn how to manage emotions and build personality. And also to learn how to lose, which is not always easy at this age. Not only games, but also creative projects to be carried out together, child and babysitter.
Index [ hide ]
- How to play?
- What games for 6 year olds?
- Special chores for children aged 6-7
- Board games: great classics and more
- Card games for two
- You play with words and shapes
- Movement games to do at home
- Games to feel great
How to play?
If “play is the job of the child” – as Maria Montessori said – then the job of the babysitter is to play with him. To build a good relationship with the child and to help him grow, play is essential. Try to play together al bambino, senza imporre il tuo gioco in modo rigido, ma lasciando che lui lo modifichi, lo immagini in modo diverso. Resta attenta alle sue reazioni. Se si annoia, lascia che smetta. Insegna che le regole vanno rispettate, ma anche che si possono cambiare, a patto che tutti siano d’accordo.Fai in modo che vinca ogni tanto (ma fallo bene, perché a 6 anni i bambini si accorgono se li fai vincere apposta), ma non lasciare che vinca ogni volta. I bambini sono abitudinari per natura, tu cerca invece di variare il tipo di gioco: le carte, le bambole, “facciamo che io ero—“, giochi di parole e giochi in scatola. Perché ogni gioco coinvolge diverse competenze. Se fai da baby sitter a due bambini, incoraggia il gioco tutti insieme scegliendo giochi adatti per le diverse età. Il gioco tra fratelli fa bene (i piccoli imparano, i grandi insegnano) ed è diverso dal gioco con i coetanei. Anche se giocano in due, mettiti a giocare con loro.
What games for 6 year olds?
How to understand which is the right game for a child? Do not rely only on age, because children are unpredictable: they can be passionate about a game that you imagined too “as a child”, or find a game that you thought perfect for them boring or too difficult. The only way to find the right game is … to play. Some games for 3 – 5 year olds may also be suitable for older children, perhaps with some adaptations.
Why did we choose these games for children of 6 years old? Because they are perfect games for an afternoon with the babysitter: they can be done at home, even just in two, with very simple materials such as paper and pen. There are some games that involve a bit of movement, because after so many hours sitting at the desk there is no need to move. And then you play with words, with shapes, with numbers, to exercise the skills you need at school. But before the actual games, some ideas for small creative projects. At 6 years old children are able to concentrate longer, they know how to cut, color and build, so you can engage them in projects to exercise creativity, which can last several days. Here are some ideas.
Special chores for children aged 6-7
Something more than simple jobs: let’s call them creative projects. Running a project together is also a way to create and develop the babysitter-child bond, to have a special thing to do together.
A few examples:
- build a doll’s house (or ninja turtles, or a farm): glue some boxes of shoes together, cut out the windows and then paint and decorate using cloth, plasticine, watercolors;
- build a collection of flags with sticks and paper;
- write a book or comic with stories invented together;
- create a secret diary: use a hardcover notebook, tapes to close it and decorate with frames, stickers or drawings;
- make a home-made puzzle: print from the internet or cut from a newspaper an image chosen together, glue it on a card and then cut it into small pieces;
- build the box of memories (or treasures, favorite toys): customize a box with colors, writings, stickers and then put the stone collected at the sea, the cinema ticket, and all the special memories.
To help the child achieve them and encourage his creativity, have you ever thought of a “box of chores” as a gift for a 6 year old ?
Board games: great classics and more
Board games are certainly among the games for children of 6 years. This is the right age: children are able to concentrate for longer periods, follow the rules, respect the game turns. Board game is very useful to stimulate attention and the ability to formulate a strategy.
If the child is used to board games, you can propose new ones based on different skills. What if you don’t play at home? Even better! It will be a novelty for him. How to start? It may be that in a forgotten drawer you find unused games: take them out and try to play. Or build simple games with him, such as checkers or fillet (or mill)for example, drawing the chessboard and using colored or round cardboard stones as pawns. If the child does not like DIY, look for “board games for children to print” on the internet or try the assembled game boxes: they are cheap and contain many board games. Ask parents to buy one, or buy it yourself as a “tool” of your babysitting job. It is a small investment that can solve many afternoons.
Among the classic games for children of 6 years, which can also be played in only two players, you can try Stairs and snakes, Goose game, Don’t get angry. Two other games useful for developing observation skills and concentration are Dobble and Halli Galli.
Card games for two
“I’m bored, what do we play at?” Sometimes a deck of cards works better than a bedroom full of toys. Why cards among games for children of 6 years? Because playing cards you train your memory, your attention, your observation skills, you get used to counting, you recognize the numbers, you make the first simple additions. And then even just shuffling the deck and distributing the cards is fun (as well as an excellent training for finger movement, necessary to write well).
As with board games, even for card games, children’s knowledge varies from family to family. There are 10 year olds who have never played cards and 5 year olds who play broom. Again, start with the simplest games: in addition to the classic broom (also fun in the “ace takes everything” variant) here are other games for children of 6 years to be played by two or more players:
- domino a carte
- rubamazzetto
- black man
- Gnagno
- battle
You play with words and shapes
If you need a quiet but fun game, below we suggest some games for children of 6 years to be seated, using pen and paper, newspaper clippings or just words. To have fun, but also to read, write, exercise memory, visual recognition, handle shapes and look for rhymes. In short, to continue practicing at home, in the form of a game, what you are learning at school.
- Rhymes game: a 48-card deck made up of pairs of words that rhyme. You can find it on the internet to download and cut out and you can use it as a memory or as a card game;
- Guess what I’m thinking: think of an object (or an animal or a person) and the child will have to guess by asking questions that you can only answer yes or no;
- The printer: cut many words from a newspaper (you will also need articles and adverbs), then mix everything in a box. At the start, words are drawn to compose a sentence that makes sense. Whoever at the end of the established time (4 or 5 minutes) has built the longest sentence;
- Tangram : an age-old game that helps understand figures and space. You can build it together with the child (just watch a tutorial on youtube) and then use it to reproduce images or to “draw”;
Pen and paper games: three of a kind, naval battle, the hanged man, flowers, fruit and animals
Movement games to do at home
After so many hours sitting at school there is a need to jump, run, move. Finding an intelligent game that allows the child to move, but without transforming the house into a gym, is not easy but with the games that we suggest below you can do it. They are games for 6 year olds that allow you to exercise your attention span, concentration, and hand-eye coordination, all skills necessary for learning. And all moving.
- Move along a path holding a tray containing some objects, without dropping them. At each turn, you can increase the difficulty by adding an object, or asking to bring the tray with one hand, proceed with your eyes closed, and so on (and look how funny the variant we thought of as a Carnival game for children );
- throw in the basket: a box or a basket, a paper ball to avoid making too much noise and a race to hit the center;
- the pillow dance: you dance wildly but when the music stops or you say “pillow”, you have to sit on the pillow (only one) put on the ground. Whoever wins the pillow wins;
- throws the card: it is played with stickers or playing cards, each player in turn throws a card trying to make it fall on one of the cards already on the ground. If he succeeds, he takes both cards. The player with the most cards wins the game.
Games to feel great
Even daily activities and objects can become a game: the game of “I know”. How do you prepare the coffee machine, how do you change the pillowcase, how do you tie your shoes, how does a letter arrive in the mailbox, how do you get home from school, how do you buy a liter of milk? You can teach the child, in the form of a game, how the world around him works. This will serve to make him more secure and to make him feel competent and capable, therefore to improve his self-esteem.
Those that we offer only a few ideas, ideas from which to start to invent your games. What do you think about it? Have you already played some of these games with children? Or do you know other games for 6 year olds that always work? Tell us about it.
For advice and information on other age groups, read our article on games for babies , games for children of 1 year or 2 , the one on games for children of 3-5 years and, to finish, our post on games to do with children aged 8 to 10 . And if you are wondering how to spend, having fun, a rainy afternoon, take a look at our post on games to do at home with children or games for two .
