Top 11 Educational Games To Invest In For Primary School Aged Kids

Staying at home with the kids can be loads of fun - but we know that thinking up new things to do together as a family can sometimes be a challenge. If you’re at home with primary school-aged kids during the lockdown period, it might be a good time to invest in some educational games for your young ones. Not only can playing games together be a brilliant way to spend quality time together with your kids, but they can also be a great learning resource, which will keep your kids learning during the school closure period. With this in mind, Kidadl has put together our list of the top educational games for primary school-aged kids.Orchard Toys Shopping List GameThis best selling game is great fun to play as a family. Players pick a shopping list at the start of the game and then match the cards they pick up to the items on their list. Whoever manages to complete their list first wins. The game is a great way to teach kids reading and comprehension skills, as they will have to match the words on their list to the pictures on the card. As your children play, they’ll also be recalling items on their shopping list every time they pick up a card, meaning that it’s one of the best games for developing memory skills. The game is made for ages three to seven, but it’s one that kids and parents alike will enjoy playing! The basic game can be bought for £8.30, but additional booster packs can be bought which include new sets of cards to play with.Articulate! For KidsThis game promises hours and hours of fun for the whole family. Just like the main game, in this kids version, the aim of the game is to describe a word without actually saying it out loud. A fantastic team game, Articulate is a brilliant way to help your kids use their language skills. When trying to describe a word, young ones will be improving their skills in expressing themselves through speech, and when they are trying to work out which word is being described, they will be developing their listening and comprehension abilities. What’s more, you can mix this kids version, which is recommended for ages 6-12, with the main version of Articulate, making it a challenging and fun activity for everyone when you play as a family. You can buy Articulate! For Kids for £8.99 here.Horrible Histories - The Board GameThe Horrible Histories game is sure to bring endless fun to young ones with a love for history. The game takes you on a journey through the past, from the Romans to the Victorians and beyond. As you move around the board, you will have to answer questions on all kinds of unusual topics from history whilst trying to avoid having to pick up a ‘Horrible Chance’ card. It’s a game full of fun historical facts which will fascinate your kids whilst also being a great learning resource and is sure to get them interested in the historical topics covered in the game. What’s more, with over 600 possible questions, this is a game which ensures endless replays to guarantee your young ones never tire of learning history!The game is recommended for eight-year-olds and above and can be found for £19.95 here.ThinkFun Rush Hour Traffic JamThis classic puzzle game is one of the best learning games for young kids. Pick from one of forty challenge cards, which will decide how to set up the traffic jam on the board. Once you have set up, you must then navigate your red car through the grid. There are a number of difficulty levels across the challenges, from beginner to expert. As well as being a brilliantly fun game for kids, it’s a great learning resource. The harder difficulty challenges are real brain teasers, so kids will get to use their problem-solving skills when they’re playing this game. Additionally, kids can play this one individually, or you can team up and try to solve some of the challenges as a family - try and see if you’ve got what it takes to beat the expert roadblocks! Rush Hour is suitable for kids between the age of 8 and 11 and can be found for £15 here.Orchard Toys Magic Maths GameOrchard Toys Magic Maths Game is a brilliant educational game with a competitive edge! In this game, players must solve maths questions to collect all kinds of weird and wacky ingredients (like worm cupcakes) to complete their spell. Once they’ve completed the maths question, players then have to use the magic heat-sensitive patch to reveal the answer. Kids will be solving tricky maths problems while they play this imaginative game, meaning that it’s one of the best learning games out there. Your young ones might not even realise that they’re learning maths as they get swept up in the magic of this game. Magic Maths Game is recommended for ages five to seven and can be bought for £15.95 here.Rory’s Story CubesWith Rory’s Story Cubes, your little ones are guaranteed hours of fun and hilarity. There’s no right or wrong way to play this game, so it’s perfect for a relaxed family activity with no competitiveness! The only rules are that you have to roll the dice and start by saying, ‘once upon a time,’ before beginning your story. Then it’s a case of letting your imagination run wild, using the pictures on the dice for inspiration. This is a wonderful game if you’re looking to help your kids to develop their problem solving and language skills, as little ones will love being able to get creative with their storytelling. With loads of different combinations of dice possible, one story will never be the same as the next one, meaning that this is one of those games your kids will keep on coming back to. The ‘Creativity Hub’ version of the cubes is priced at £9.40 and can be bought at this link. What’s more, there are tonnes of extra versions of the game, meaning that if your kids are loving the basic set, you can expand the games to include characters from Doctor Who or Batman! The game is suitable for any kid above the age of 6.QwirkleThis puzzle game is a fantastic choice if you’re looking for a game to play as a family, as it’s perfect for up to four players. The rules are easy to learn - it’s just like Scrabble, except instead of creating words, you win points for making colour and shape sequences. Matching up the sequences of shapes and colours is a great problem-solving activity for kids, and your young ones will gain strategy skills by trying to think ahead and pick when to play their tiles. It’s a game which is suitable for 6-year-olds and above and can be bought for £21.42 at this link.Roller Coaster ChallengeThis fun game is a great tool for any budding engineers or designers - by solving the intricate roller-coaster building challenges, kids will be able to get creative by building their coaster whilst also improving their planning and reasoning skills. With thousands of possible combinations, kids can let their imaginations run wild, making this a great game for encouraging creativity in your young ones. The game also comes with a number of different difficulty settings, meaning that your kids will be able to improve and develop upon the skills they gain while playing. Roller Coaster Challenge is recommended for kids above the age of 6, and you can buy the game for £24.99 here.What’s The Time, Mr. Wolf?For kids under the age of 10, this is a brilliant game to help with learning to tell the time. Players will race around the board, matching the times they land on to the clock. Along the way, they will have to make sure to watch out for the wolf, who can ’eat’ their cards! The game comes with a clock with moveable hands, making it a fun, interactive educational game which kids will get hours of fun from. This board game also supports both digital and analogue time learning, so you can adjust the play to ensure that your kids are always picking up new skills whilst playing. The board itself is also wonderfully designed, meaning that kids get a chance to fire their imaginations whilst playing! The game is available for £10.50 from the Orchard Toys website.Cat Crimes Logic GameAs one of the most unique educational games for 10-year-olds, this is a great pick if your little ones will like something a little bit out of the ordinary! A cat-themed spin on classic board games like Cluedo, in this game kids will try to figure out which of the characters are responsible for which cat crime. This will help them to improve their problem solving and critical thinking skills as they move through the set of 40 ‘crimes’ to solve. Your young ones will have a great time using the clues (such as paw prints) to solve the puzzles, meaning this is one of the best board games to keep your kids entertained while they learn. Cat Crimes is available for £13.79 and can be bought here. The game is recommended for 8-year-olds and above.Billionaire Boy - Tremendous Times TablesKids will love this brilliantly-illustrated set of card games based on David Walliam’s stories. The card games are specially designed to help kids improve their maths skills, featuring 52 separate cards which you can be used for a number of different games. Best of all, the games are all playable as a group, meaning that you can play as a family and give your little ones a hand with developing their maths skills, or kids can play together with their siblings. For any little ones who are fans of the book which the designs are based on, this is sure to be a hugely fun way to brush up on their times tables! The game is recommended for ages 5 and above and can be bought for £7.95 at this link.‍For more of Kidadl’s content to help you through the lockdown period, take a look at our articles on Celebrity Homeschool: 11 Free Lockdown Lessons Led By Celebs and Best Guide To Online KS2 Educational Resources.