The Strategy Lab | Brain-Building Board Games

What if your kitchen table was actually a high-performance mental gym? While board games are often seen as just indoor rainy day activities, they are secretly one of the most effective tools we have for building Executive Functions.

Strategy board games encourage us to think through a problem, plan ahead, and, most importantly, how to change your plan when things change or the plan fails.

Board Games for Ages 3 - 6

• Outfoxed (Deductive Reasoning, Cooperation)

  • Work together to gather clues and rule out suspects before your fox their escapes!

• Sneaky Snacky Squirrel (Inhibitory Control & Fine Motor)

  • Use the squirrel "squeezers" to collect colored acorns for your log.

• Hoot Owl Hoot! (Collaborative Planning)

  • Work together to get all the owls back to the nest before the sun comes up.

• Robot Turtles (Early Coding Logic)

  • Use "Code Cards" to move your turtle to its matching jewel.

• Monster Match by Kitten Games (Working Memory)

  • A fast-paced diced-based version of a traditional matching game.

• I Want my Teeth Back (Strategic Thinking, Collaboration)

  • Help the Meef monster collect his teeth through simple math and thinking through problems.

• UnderBugs (Memory, Spatial awareness)

  • New twist on memory games where you have to match bugs you find under rocks to those on a card.

Board Games for Ages 7+

• Invasion of the Cow Snatchers (Strategic Planning, Spatial Awareness)

  • Magnet based puzzle game with different challenge levels.

• Ticket to Ride First Journey (Memory & Strategic Planning)

  • Connect cities across a map using train cars. Players must to keep track of their secret routes while watching where others are building.

• Jenga (Spatial Awareness)

  • The ultimate test of physical and mental patience. One impulsive move, and the whole tower crashes.

• Forbidden Island (Collaborative Problem Solving)

  • Work as a team to collect treasures before the island sinks.

• Blokus (Spatial Reasoning & Cognitive Flexibility)

  • Fit as many of your shapes onto the board as possible while blocking others.

•  Chess or Checkers (Strategic Planning)

  • The gold standard for working through predictive outcomes and pausing before making a decision.

• Rush Hour (Logic & Sequencing):

  • Slide cars out of the way to get the red car out of the traffic jam. One wrong move blocks the whole path, where the player has to backtrack their steps and try again.

• Dr. Eureka (Spatial Reasoning, Fine Motor Skills)

  • Match challenge formula cards by moving different color balls between test tubes without touching them.

• Catan or Catan Jr. (Cognitive Flexibility)

  • Players must constantly trade and change their building plans based on what resources are available.

Quick Tip for Parents

When you play games, try to move kids away from the focus on winning and instead on the process of playing and thinking through their moves.

Try asking these questions during the game:

1. "What do you think will happen if you make that choice?"

2. "What options do you have?"

3. "That didn't work out - what are you going to do now?"

And when a child gets frustrated, try these:

• "It's frustrating when things don't work about. We have to stay calm to think, how can we do that together?"

• "Let's do a quick stretch or brain break and come back to it in 2 minutes."

• "I got frustrated when my plan failed too. What can I do to move past it?"

Happy Gaming!