Match Games for Kids

Discovery Kids Match Games

• Have your child match various animals with their group name at www.kids.discovery.com/games/wildwildmatch/wildwildmatch.html. Wild Wild Match's "hard" level has one round, with word clues appearing on the images---so if your child sees a picture of a barrel and one of monkeys, have her match those to get a "barrel of monkeys."

  The "harder" level consists of two rounds. The "hardest" level also contains two rounds, but unlike the previous rounds, it has a time limit and contains no word clues. Your child must rely on her knowledge and memory to match the puzzle pieces.

  On the same Discovery site, have your child play a memory/concentration game at www.kids.discovery.com/fansites/tutenstein/kingtut/kingtut.html. After choosing from among three levels of difficulty, have her click on a card to reveal the image, and then click on another to see if she has a match.

  When your child makes a match, information on that particular Tutenstein artifact or character pops up on the screen; if she wants to see the information again, she moves the mouse over to the image. This game has a timer, so to ensure that your child finishes with an impressive time, have her work efficiently at memorizing each image's location.

Match the Bugz

• If you want your child to try a strategic matching game, head to www.learn4good.com/games/online/bugs_match_the_bugz.htm. If your child sees two like bugs next to each other (horizontally or vertically), he needs a third to make a match.

  To get a match of three of the same insect, have your child find a third like bug that he can swap with a bug above or under, or to the left or right of one of the two like bugs (diagonal matches do not count). Have him left-click on the bugs to switch them. The three matched bugs disappear, which may create a domino effect of matches (after new bug blocks enter the picture) and point accumulations.

  When your child makes a match, he gets more time to play that level. Once your child removes the required number of bugs from the grid before time expires (which he may do by default in some cases, making a match that sets a domino-like effect into motion), he moves on to the next level.

  While your child loses points if he matches bombs, at times he will have to because he will be unable to make any bug matches unless he matches bombs.

Christmas Match Game

• If your family loves the holidays, your child may enjoy matching Christmas pictures at www.primarygames.com/holidays/christmas/match_games/xmas_match.htm. As with traditional concentration games, have her click on a card to reveal the image underneath, and click on other cards to find a match.

  While this game does not have a timer, it does keep track of how many match attempts a player makes. If your child clicks outside the box, that counts as an attempt, so be careful to avoid racking up excessive attempts. After every game, record her progress by writing down the number of attempts it takes her to match all pairs.