Here’s how veteran Parenthacker Duane makes memory games more playable for his preschool-aged daughter:
How many variations of “concentration/memory” games have you got in your game closet? I cringe when laying out a grid of some 50 facedown cards, knowing that my four year old is never going to keep the necessary information in her brain to win this game.
So the other night we invented “Concentration Lite”. That’s where, after each player has had a turn, Daddy or Mommy randomly flips a card over, and leaves it face up. Any player can now try to match that card as well, but now only needs to remember where one card was. As the game progresses and more cards get flipped, it gets easier for the younger ones to get a fair shake at it. You can adjust the difficulty for your own situation by deciding how often you flip a card – after each turn, or just every now and then when you think they need a little help. (We used to play the super simple version, where as all cards get flipped, they stay face up. But that’s too easy and the game is over too fast.)
Who else has game rule changes that make it easier for little kids to play?
Related: Simple toddler game teaches letters, numbers, turn-taking, fine motor skills and … it’s fun
We use that exact game pictured and since my kids are 3 (twins) we started with a small selection of cards face up and just used it for matching. As time progressed we added more and more cards until we had them all out at the beginning. Then I started having the kids pick which items the other one would need to find.
Have to try the flip and leave flipped over method for memory. Good suggestion. We havent done much of the memory type activities because it does get frustrating for them pretty quickly.
Brilliant! I think I read this hack on your site, but in other board games we allow the child to switch places with an adult. (If I’m ahead, he can play my piece instead of his – I take over his). You are only allowed to switch once per game though.
We also do partner stuff a lot.
What an awesome hack. Thanks Duane!
My daughter is two and just got her first Memory game for Christmas. Right now I am just pulling out up to 5 pairs of matching cards and trying to teach her the game. I will add more pairs as she gets the hang of it.
For a while we used to play with a smaller set of cards (20 instead of 50 for example. Another adjustment we made is to forgo the rule where a correct match gets you an extra turn. Then we gradually added cards back, and eventually introduced “big kid concentration” with the extra turn rule. Now that my daughter is almost 5, she does OK with the standard game. There’s a great iPhone memory game, btw, that is super for restaurant or bus waits and what have you.
As our oldest is not yet 4, we play with a reduced deck. Also, we had one go missing. Instead of throwing it away, occasionally we throw it in the mix for an ‘old maid’ style game.
At our preschool the rule is that each kid gets to turn over 3 cards on his/her turn. This increases the chances of getting a match, and also helps everyone else by increasing exposure to all the cards.
At home, we have a memory game with 3 smaller sets that can be used alone or combined. We just use a smaller set for beginners.
This is a 21st century cop-out answer, but hey…
There is a really great memory game available on the ipod touch that helps kids get the idea of the game without all the card pickup! My 3-year old son does really well with this version, but we both struggle with the real, tangible one since he just wants to turn them all over and I end up policing the whole game.
I play Memory with my 5-year-old daughter, and she’s pretty good at remembering.
We play with maybe 15-20 pairs of a regular deck of cards. The only rule change is that if SHE gets a match, she keeps going, but DADDY only gets one chance, match or not!
That makes it much more enjoyable for both of us, since I have to make no mistakes in order to have any chance at winning!
😉
Mine are twin 4 year old boys and a 2 year old girl. We also play with a reduced deck. Like most everyone else we have the game pictured above and I just let them pick out 2 of the stacks from the box, which gives us about 24 or so cards. We also took out the rule for an extra turn if you get a match. I’m not a great fan of that rule because it gives the person getting matches an unfair advantage. All of mine are really good at it. Our only problem comes about when they get focused on a certain picture and keep turning it over until they find the match.
My daughter is 4.5 and has been playing Memory for probably more than a year. We started with a smaller deck and also follow the rule where only kids get to keep going when they make a match.
I found it pretty interesting that from the get-go, she had close to perfect recall of where each card was (better than her parents). Of course, she lacked in strategy and on her turn would start off flipping her favorite card before randomly picking one from the ones that had not yet been turned over.
We use the “I Never Forget a Face” version of the game. Quality construction and a topic starter about geography and other cultures.
http://www.amazon.com/eeBoo-Never-Forget-Face-Memory/dp/B000ELQUZO
I work at a children’s home (see link below), and memory games are our kindergartners’ favorites. They will employ tactics such as biting pieces to identify them, which of course we discourage, but they are very good at it. However I do notice that when they play, the cards are never in a nice grid shown above. Instead they are just jumbled about. They use no other “cheats” and yet they excel at it, and can beat adults very easily. I am very proud of them.
I had to chuckle at this suggestion a little bit because our soon-to-be 5-year-old daughter received a Disney Princess memory game for her 4th birthday which contains 72 cards. We started off playing with half the deck, only to discover she was kicking our behinds with relative ease. We soon expanded to the whole set and darn if she doesn’t win almost every time. Either her memory is terrific or Mommy’s and Daddy’s is fading (or both)!
I picked up a version of memory for younger kids at the thrift store. Instead of one big set of cards, there were two smaller sets. One of the smaller sets had the cards shaped different (there were two circles, two fish shaped ones, etc) in addition to the pictures on the reverse side. So it is a little harder than just leaving them face up but a lot easier if they’re just learning. When we first started playing, my daughter didn’t realize that the shapes were the same for a pair, but could use them to remember the locations a little better.