Exactly. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Candyland is the best game ever for children of a certain age. I went to great lengths to import a copy here to Norway, and my 4 and 5-year-olds absolutely love it.
The time will come, soon enough, when they want a game that requires them to make decisions, and plot strategy-- and when that day comes, there are plenty of such games to choose from. (My two older daughters both jumped straight to chess when they got to that stage.) But right now, game playing is about the social aspects.
In fact, prior to the arrival of Candyland, my five-year-old (then four) would make us play board games without any rules. She'd roll the dice, and move the pieces around randomly, and have us do the same. That was the part that was fun.
Lately, she's gotten into card games, and her favorite at the moment is a game of her own invention, called "Stop and Go". You divide the cards equally among the players, and each player has a stack, face down. When it is your turn, you turn over the top card. If it is red, you stop. If it is black, you turn over another card, and keep going until you hit a red card. The first person to go through their whole stack wins. No strategy, no decisions-- from a game theory standpoint, it's the same as a lottery drawing-- but that's the beauty of it.
The time will come, soon enough, when they want a game that requires them to make decisions, and plot strategy-- and when that day comes, there are plenty of such games to choose from. (My two older daughters both jumped straight to chess when they got to that stage.) But right now, game playing is about the social aspects.
In fact, prior to the arrival of Candyland, my five-year-old (then four) would make us play board games without any rules. She'd roll the dice, and move the pieces around randomly, and have us do the same. That was the part that was fun.
Lately, she's gotten into card games, and her favorite at the moment is a game of her own invention, called "Stop and Go". You divide the cards equally among the players, and each player has a stack, face down. When it is your turn, you turn over the top card. If it is red, you stop. If it is black, you turn over another card, and keep going until you hit a red card. The first person to go through their whole stack wins. No strategy, no decisions-- from a game theory standpoint, it's the same as a lottery drawing-- but that's the beauty of it.
EDIT: for clarity.