It’s been 28 years since I was five years old, but my nephew turned five a few months ago and one of my Uncle Duties is introducing him to video games. What’s the scene like these days for kindergarten-age games? Is there a series that parents tend to recommend?
I’m looking for tablet/PC games, since his mother doesn’t own any consoles. And ideally something at least vaguely educational, of course. I still have floppies of my old Brøderbund games (Treasure Mountain was the first game I was allowed to play) but that might be a little too retro.
This might be a disappointingly milquetoast answer, but, Minecraft!
My son is five years old and many of the kids in his kindergarten class are obsessed with Minecraft. It promotes creative play, and sort of even helps build real-life skills like logical thinking and spatial awareness.
I think Minecraft is a great answer. It’s a great way to introduce things we are used to like camera controls, crafting and of course swords!!
As it’s on a tablet I was going to suggest looking at your appropriate store for LEGO games. There’s a lot out there and even the duplo ones which may sound too young for a five year old have Duplo Marvel. There’s others like the builder (which is great if he already has sets as you can use it like an interactive manual) and other great games.
And you can never go wrong with emulation and a good old platformer!
it’s been while since i had a five year old, but i think kids that age like human fall flat. devoid of any educational pretense though (though i could be wrong).
It’s a silly floppy physics sandbox game with light puzzle solving. No direct educational intent but it does encourage critical thinking and environmental awareness. Reminds me that a young cousin of mine also really loved Untitled Goose Game back when it came out. These low-stakes sandboxes definitely seem to be the preference