How to keep a 6-year-old busy: reading, board games and challenges

This is also the year reading starts to click for many children, which opens up a whole new kind of quiet time. Here are ideas by moment of the day, built around what six-year-olds tend to love: games, goals and being taken seriously.

Mornings: a challenge to start the day

Six-year-olds like a target. A small morning challenge gives the day shape and gets the boring bits done.

• A timer race to get dressed and make the bed, with a tally chart on the fridge.
• A “word of the day” stuck to the bathroom mirror, to read by themselves at tooth-brushing time.
• A simple breakfast they prepare alone: toast, spreading, pouring, with you drinking your tea nearby.
• A ten-minute drawing challenge: “draw a house for a giraffe”.

Mid-morning: board games and card games

At six, board games become possible for real, with rules that are followed, mostly. They teach waiting your turn, losing with some grace and thinking ahead, and they are a genuine pleasure for the adults too.

• Simple card games: snap, pairs, old maid, beggar-my-neighbour.
• Draughts, Ludo, a cooperative game where everyone wins or loses together.
• A home-made game: a race track drawn on a big sheet of paper, with dice and “penalty” squares that Harry invents.
• Dominoes, both as a game and lined up to knock over.

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After lunch: the beginning of reading

Many six-year-olds are at the stage where reading is possible but still hard work. The best thing you can do is make it feel like a reward rather than a test.

• Early-reader books with short chapters, read half by them and half by you.
• Comics and picture books with speech bubbles, which carry a reader along.
• A “reading picnic” on the living-room floor, with a blanket and a snack.
• Subtitled cartoons, which quietly add a lot of reading practice.

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Late afternoon: projects and building

Building projects suit the late afternoon, when sitting still is hard but running around is not an option.

• A den with a password and a sign.
• A Lego or block challenge: the tallest tower, a bridge that holds a book, a car that rolls.
• A puppet theatre from a cardboard box, with a show for the family after tea.
• A “restaurant” where Poppy writes the menu, takes orders and serves dinner.

Evening: winding down with a story

After a day of challenges, the evening should be slower. A story read together is still the best way most families know to end the day, and it matters just as much now that your child can read a little on their own. Chapter books, one chapter a night, start to work well around six.

Our article on the bedtime routine has more on building an evening that ends calmly, and the one on giving your child a love of reading looks at how to keep the momentum going.

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