The Best Board Games for 5 Year Olds

Five is a real threshold, and it is worth saying why. A three-year-old can play a game in the sense that they can move a piece when told to. A five-year-old can hold a small hand of cards, wait through somebody else’s turn, follow a rule that was explained once, and - this is the part that changes everything - notice that they lost. That last ability is why a game chosen for a five-year-old fails in a different way than one chosen for a three-year-old. It is not too hard. It is too raw.

So this page sorts on two things: the publisher’s own stated age floor, and whether the game gives a five-year-old something to be good at. Every number below is the publisher’s figure, taken from their own product page and attributed to them. We have not play-tested any of these, and we say so on every page.

How these eight were chosen

Three tests, applied in order. First, the publisher’s stated age floor has to be 6 or below, and five of the eight are at 4 or 5 - a game rated 8+ does not belong on this page however good it is. Second, the game has to be winnable by a five-year-old without an adult quietly throwing it, which rules out anything built on reading, arithmetic or planning several turns ahead. Third, it has to still be in print and buyable today, which is why two well-known preschool games that are endlessly recommended online are not here.

What we deliberately did not use: our own opinion of how much fun each one is with a child in front of us. We have not played them. What we can do honestly is read the publishers’ figures, check the game genuinely fits the age in the title, confirm it is still sold, and tell you who should skip each one. The full method is on how we pick, and every stated age we carry for every game sits in one table on the board game age guide.

The thing that decides it: how they handle losing

Ask one question before you look at any box. Does this child mind losing? At five the honest answer is usually yes, and it splits the list cleanly in two.

If they mind, buy a cooperative game. Outfoxed! is the clearest case: everyone at the table is working together to identify the culprit before the fox escapes, so a five-year-old and a parent either win or lose as one. Nobody has to decide whether to play properly. If they do not mind - or if the losing is the point, because they have an older sibling they are desperate to beat - then Rhino Hero is the better buy, because it is one of a very small number of games where a five-year-old can beat an adult without anybody arranging it.

The games in the middle, Dragon’s Breath and Animal Upon Animal, work either way. Both are competitive, but the gap between a good turn and a bad one is small enough that losing does not feel like a verdict on the child.

Buy at the stated age, not above it

The instinct with a bright five-year-old is to buy up a year or two, and it is usually a mistake - not because they cannot cope, but because the failure is social rather than mental. A game slightly above a child’s level needs an adult to explain every single turn, which turns playing into being taught. Children work out the difference immediately, and the box goes on a shelf.

Which is also the case for the three 6+ games on this list. Happy Salmon is rated 6 by Exploding Kittens, but it has no reading and no rules to hold in your head, so it is the one 6+ game that most five-year-olds fall straight into. CATAN Junior and Ticket to Ride: First Journey are different: both publishers mean the 6, and both games ask a child to hold a plan across several turns. Buy those for a five-year-old who is nearly six, or for a five-year-old with an older sibling at the table, or as the present they open next year.

Playing time matters more than you think

The stated times on this page run from 90 seconds to 40 minutes, and at this age that range is the difference between a game that gets played weekly and one that gets abandoned halfway through. Thirty minutes is a long time for a five-year-old who is not already used to sitting at a table.

If you are not sure, buy short. Rhino Hero at a stated 5 to 15 minutes and Happy Salmon at 90 seconds both survive being played four times in a row, which is what actually happens with a game a five-year-old likes. My First Carcassonne is excellent and Z-Man states 30 minutes for it, which is at the top end for the age it targets - worth knowing before it arrives. The same logic, applied across every game we cover, is on our playing-time guide.

What to skip

Skip anything whose rules depend on reading. A typical five-year-old is somewhere between recognizing letters and reading a sentence, and a game that needs the second one turns into an adult reading aloud, which is not a game.

Skip roll-and-move games where a die decides everything and the child makes no choices at all - they are quietly boring, and a five-year-old is well past needing them. And skip a box full of very small pieces if there is a toddler in the house: Dragon’s Breath is a genuinely good game with dozens of small acrylic stones in it, and that is a real consideration rather than a theoretical one.

How much to spend

Children’s games sit in the cheapest band in the hobby. A stacking card game like Rhino Hero is a small-box purchase, the wooden and boxed games here are the next step up, and Ticket to Ride: First Journey is the most expensive thing on this page by some distance because it has a board, cards and plastic trains in it. We do not print remembered prices anywhere on this site - the button on each pick shows the live figure when we hold one, and says so plainly when we do not. If a number is the constraint, our picks under $20 start from the price instead.