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Type: Competitive
Players: 2-4
Overview: This surprisingly engaging French tile-laying game (also known as “Wooly Bully”) is great for hooking children, clients, or students who are motivated by visual input. These individuals love video games, movies, and other things that challenge them to pay close attention. This game helps build skills that support handwriting, dressing, and other daily & school-based activities. I’ve also had great success using it with adults with dementia, stroke, or brain injury.
Recommended Age: 8+
Length: ~30 minutes
Skill Targets:
Learning Targets:
Description: The country of La Guerre des Moutons (the war of sheep) is full of fields and forests. Each player tries to make the largest pens with their own color sheep inside by placing their tiles. You can easily close small pens, or you can be ambitious and try to build large farms – but if you cannot enclose the fields, your sheep are likely to be eaten by the big bad wolves roaming in the nearby forests. Each player’s sheep color is secret at the beginning of the game and is strategically revealed to gain maximum points.
Game tiles are laid in the style of dominos, matching color or pattern. Unlike dominos, tiles can be matched on up to four different sides. Tiles are double-sided and have nearly every possible combination of sheep color, number, and landscape (forest or village).
Here are some suggestions for how to use Wooly Wars for specific learning and therapeutic goals.
Make it easier:
Make it harder:
Target executive functioning:
Target visual-spatial skills:
Target motor skills:
Target social-emotional skills:
Target sensory processing:
Target math skills:
Role-playing games (RPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons combine storytelling, imagination, and collaborative problem solving. In these games, players create characters and work together to explore a story guided by a facilitator or game master.
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RPGs are often played just for fun, but they can also be powerful tools in therapeutic, educational, and social settings
Children aged 7-10 years are learning to plan ahead, follow multi-step rules, manage frustration, and think flexibly when things don’t go their way.
Through turn-taking, strategy, problem solving, and playful competition, kids can build important executive functioning, social, and emotional skills while staying engaged.
Once children turn four, their impulse control has improved significantly and they can begin playing more interesting games.
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Good games for this age group challenge cognitive flexibility and problem solving. I’ve compiled a list that targets a variety of skills & subjects and are lots of fun.
It is never too early to introduce your little one to the fun that comes with board games! Even at age two, playing games can help children develop focused attention, frustration tolerance, and impulse control. Here is a list that targets a variety of skills & subjects.
Age: 10+
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Competitive / Semi-Cooperative
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Subjects: English / Language Arts
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Skills: Executive Functioning, Fine Motor, Social-Emotional, Visual-Spatial
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This word game challenges two teams to give single-word clues to help their teammates collect points – while avoiding the assassin!
Board games are powerful tools that offer a multitude of therapeutic benefits to help individuals develop essential skills for daily living.
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This post explores how board games can significantly enhance cognitive functions, specifically memory and problem-solving skills. If you’re looking for games that target cognitive skills, this is for you!
Age: 7+
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Cooperative
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Subjects: Math & Science, Natural World
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Skills: Executive Functioning, Social-Emotional, Visual-Spatial
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In this cooperative strategy game, players have survived a plane crash and scavenged supplies from the wreckage. Now, they must work together to survive until they are rescued!
Age: 2+
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Cooperative
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Subjects: Arts & Music, Math & Science, Natural World
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Skills: Executive Functioning, Fine Motor, Sensory Integration, Social-Emotional, Visual-Spatial
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Hurry and work together to help the owls get back to the nest before the sun rises!
Scientific research supports the variety of benefits that come from play.
This post explores 10 of those potential benefits with relevant clinical examples and associated game recommendations.
Age: 7+
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Competitive
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Subjects: Math & Science, Natural World
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Skills: Executive Functioning, Fine Motor, Sensory Integration, Social-Emotional, Visual-Spatial
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This surprisingly engaging French game is great for hooking children / clients / students who are motivated by visual input. Take turns laying tiles and matching colors and patterns.
Age: 4+
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Cooperative
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Subjects: English Language Arts, Math & Science, Natural World
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Skills: Executive Functioning, Fine Motor, Social Emotional, Visual-Spatial
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My #1 recommendation for young board gamers!