Outfoxed! is the only one that seems to be popular in our household through that whole age range. The difference between 3 and 6 is huge!
Oh, it’s not really “portable” though, I didn’t really have that in mind. Average smallish box.
Incan Gold is a little smaller and also works 3-6, especially if you use hand gestures to stay or leave.
I second Outfoxed. What A Performance is quite good for young kids - acting, sounds, challenges etc. The 6 year old might do Ghost Blitz but not sure the 3 year old would!
Dobble would be my suggestion
Rhino Hero?
Man, I’m feeling this in my gut. My 5 1/2 year old does not get games AT ALL. As a parent you tend to assume “this is normal, this is age appropriate” until you see these lists of games that other kids that age are playing.
She’s a hard one to gauge. She has a physical disability, not a learning or emotional one. But you just can’t tell. So many of the tests of aptitude and progress are woven together, mind and motor. You give her a pattern and she can tell you what comes next but she has a lot of trouble completing the pattern with her hands and pieces. At the same time, she has the ability to build a brio train track and put a train together on it. And you just don’t know, is it the combination of the two things that is just too much to do at once? Is it a confidence issue, where she is avoiding a task that she is worried she might fail?
We also don’t know to what extent she’s just lacking the basic childrens’ opportunities. Instead of running around hitting flowers with sticks, brain processing how things fall and flop and interact with each other, she’s been doing squats and treadmills in a therapist’s office. Could be a lack of aptitude or just a lack of exposure to life’s little lessons where children do the work of putting one and one together.
She can do shapes puzzles but, at last attempt, building a Carcassonne map was either too hard or too intimidating. She can now count spaces on a roll and move (the concept of “path” used to elude her) but the concepts of starting where you stopped last turn, and taking turns, are still foreign.
I wish I knew more. I don’t know if these are things she just can’t do or just hasn’t learned the prerequisites. And I don’t know what those prerequisites are. And I don’t know how to allocate the limited time in her day between everything she needs. There aren’t enough hours.
Monza comes in a reasonable sized box and my then 3-6 year olds loved it. They’re now 7-10 and still enjoy the occasional game. I feel the exact opposite of Acacia though as my youngest can play Race for the Galaxy at a reasonable level.
Dobble is a good suggestion as well.
Perhaps Dobble Kids? 3 seems young for regular Dobble
Many thanks for the suggestions, folks! I have passed them along (and suggested that whatever they pick is likely to be a bit of a gamble, so cross fingers and hope for the best…).
I am over the moon. Several jubilant expletives excluded there.
My 5yo played a complete game of unicorn glitterluck today. All the rules, start to finish, and she won.
Refresher, since I don’t assume people remember all the gory details of my life. She has a physical disability, but no diagnosis yet of cognitive or emotional ones. That said, she’s “on watch” for both and her brain is full of scar tissue.
She’s mostly typical, even advanced, but then there are these very narrow but absolute gaps in her abilities. Like in an assessment she’ll be 5 5 5 0. Nothing in between.
When we hit those, we don’t know if it is a) lack of exposure, because she’s been in physical therapy instead of eating dirt like a normal kid or unable to participate in activities, b) a skill connected to motor skills in an unexpected way, so something she lacks the prerequisites for, c) self sabotage, a kind of avoidance when she is unsure to protect against the sting of failure, or d) some burned out spot in her brain that we are now finding.
I’ve written before, games are one of these things that touch on so many of those elements. Taking turns is a tough concept when you don’t have access to the ad hoc games your peers are playing. Moving four spaces down a track is an abstract concept kids learn by building stacks of objects and stuff, and if you don’t have the trunk support or fine motor control to do that, you don’t get the chance to learn. On and on. So I see that games are stumping her and there is this huge Gordian knot of basic skills to work through and possible immovable objects.
There haven’t been a lot of victories.
Thanks to this thread for setting me on Haba. Peaceable Kingdom makes crappy games with crappy components, I now know. Unicorn glitterluck is polished in its mundane simplicity and oh my gosh theme.
She’s been making huge strides in her mobility and control. She’s been going back to just be a kid in a lot of the ways she missed. Her 3yo sister is great for that. She started a new school and has gained a lot of curiosity and confidence.
I’ve typed a lot already because there is a lot in me. I’ll skip the rest of the stepping stones. Today we played. I played with my daughter. She rolled the dice and counted the clouds and moved Magic Swirl (her unicorn) and declared what the rules then gave her. She left her unicorn in its place and took her turns. She took her crystals and counted them in the end and she won.
She got it.
This was such a lovely update to read first thing in the morning 
I hope she was a pleased with her win as you were!
A book could be written about her smile 
More Mona Lisa than Loius Armstrong.
“Do you have useless stumpy little arms?”
*sigh*… “Yes.”
Can’t reach to flip down the counters!
One update - two more goes at Unicorn Glitterluck. The first was with both my kids which is always a mistake as about 2 and a half minutes in the game changes from Unicorn Glitterluck to 60 Crystal Pickup Gigglefest. The younger just turned 3 and I think some 1:1 sessions with her and Glitterluck or Carcassonne would be fruitful but for now trying to play with both of them is a failed exercise.
Then we played again, just me and the oldest, and had a repeat of the first game. Right down to her winning. I’m so happy as there is literally no way for me to throw the game her way unless I can secretly modify the die roll.
We aren’t to Monza yet but doing well in the “following abstract direction within a game framework and having fun.”
One question - My 13yo nephew is enjoying board games and I want to get him something for Christmas. He appears to be more of a concrete thinker than an abstract one (so Quest for El Dorado is great - play a card, move, first one to the end wins) whereas something like Res Arcana (figure out how to convert a to b to c and at some point pivot to making points???)
El Dorado and Blue Lagoon appear to be about his level of complexity. I think he’s capable of more but like me doesn’t have anyone to play with so he’s just unpracticed.
I have a bunch of games that I’ve thought of but three that crossed my mind were First Rat, Cubitos, and Clank! I have low knowledge about them.
Anyone have thoughts on the quality and appropriateness of those? If Clank, what’s the best Clank?
I can definitely recommend First Rat. It’s quite point-salady, in that there are a lot of ways to score points, but all of them are some variation of “choose how far you want to move your rat(s) and what you want to pick up”. It’s quite tactical because you can block or be blocked by other people (unless cheese changes hands), so there’s more depth than just “move and collect stuff”. The theme is fun too
