Learning games you don't have to worry about

Practises number recognition and early addition, moving on to subtraction, then multiplication and division as your child gets faster. The difficulty follows how many rounds they've completed, so it keeps pace with them rather than starting hard.

A sliding-tile puzzle builds patience and spatial reasoning — planning two or three moves ahead. The grid grows as your child improves, so early rounds stay solvable and later ones stay interesting.

Trains sustained attention and visual tracking — following one thing while others move. The shuffle gets faster and adds cups over time, which is a gentle way to stretch concentration.

Spotting and continuing a pattern is early logic — the groundwork under counting, reading and music — and it's the one thing no other game in the forest practises. Patterns start as a simple ABAB and grow longer and busier as your child gets them right, first repeating two shapes, then three, then four. A wrong tap only costs a star and shows the pattern again, so it stays a puzzle rather than a test.

Sorting by colour is one of the first ways children group the world, and it comes before counting — so this is the gentlest game in the forest, for the youngest. Two baskets to start, then three, four and five as your child gets quicker. A wrong tap costs a star and lets them try again, so it stays playful.

Classic memory matching, which exercises short-term recall and turn-taking. More pairs appear as your child gets quicker, so the board grows with them.

Comparing size is seriation, and children can do it before they can count — which makes this one of the gentlest games here. Every item in a round is the same drawing at a different scale, so size is genuinely the only difference; comparing a big leaf with a small acorn would be a question about pictures instead. Two items to start, up to four, with the sizes creeping closer together so a glance stops being enough. From level two Sixten sometimes asks for the smallest, so it can't be won on autopilot.

Shapes are the vocabulary a child needs before anything geometric makes sense, and it's the one thing no other game here teaches. Every shape is drawn in a single flat colour on purpose: if the circle were red and the square blue, a child could win on colour alone and never look at the outline. Two holes to start, up to five — and at the last level the holes are turned, so the shape can't be matched by orientation either, which is early mental rotation.

Comparing “more” and “fewer” is early number sense — knowing which group is bigger, at first by eye and later by counting. Piles start far apart and easy to eyeball, then close in so a glance won't do. From level two Shelly sometimes asks for fewer, not more, so it can't be won on autopilot.

Builds categorisation and close observation — noticing what makes something different. Later rounds use subtler differences, which is where the real thinking starts.

Flag recognition is a gentle way into geography, and the levels change what is actually being asked. Early rounds show four very different flags; later ones offer four flags built the same way — four Nordic crosses, four tricolours — so your child has to read the colours rather than the shape. From level three a countdown appears and gets shorter, which turns recall into quick recall.

The playground game of “Simon” — hold a sequence in your head and play it back. It practises working memory, which underpins following instructions and mental arithmetic. The sequence grows by one each level, and a wrong tap only costs a star and replays the same sequence, so it stays “watch again” rather than “game over”.

A one-button game, which is exactly why it works for small hands: the only skill is knowing when to press. It practises timing and anticipation, and Freddie only speeds up after a run of eight clear hops, so the pace follows what your child can already do. Stars are earned per three hurdles cleared rather than per run, so a short run still counts for something.

This is the playground game, and it practises the hardest thing at this age: stopping an action already in progress. The amber warning and the split-second of grace after red both shrink as your child improves, so what changes is how much notice they get rather than how fast they must be. Being caught sends Luna back to the start, as in the real game — a race is only about ten seconds of green, so losing one is a groan rather than a disaster.

Thirty seconds of aiming and tapping, which practises hand-eye coordination and quick decisions under a clock. Balloons rise faster and get smaller only after a round of fifteen pops, so the pace follows your child. Golden balloons are worth three, which gives a reason to choose a target rather than tap at everything.

Route-finding, which is planning made visible: your child has to look ahead, spot a dead end and back out of it. Walls refuse the move rather than ending the game, so pressing against one costs nothing and the maze teaches by being solid. Dragging back over the trail rubs it out, and “Show me” draws the answer when a maze has stopped being fun. Mazes grow from 4×4 to 9×9.

A reward game unlocked with collected stars. It practises reaction speed and hand-eye coordination, and it's deliberately the lightest of the six — something to enjoy after the thinking games.