Kids True Color

This one does not try to be fun in the way a game usually is. It is a drill. Each prompt is tiny — look at the colour, choose the one that matches, done in a few seconds — and then another prompt arrives. That brevity is the point, because small children cannot sit still for long, and finishing quickly leaves them feeling capable rather than examined.

The useful thing an adult can do is say the colour name out loud every time the child gets one right. The real goal is not the tap; it is linking what the eye sees to the word that names it. Plenty of children can separate colours some time before they can name them reliably, and that gap is exactly where a voice beside them earns its keep.

For a child who already reads, this will run out of challenge almost immediately, and the arithmetic or crossword titles on the same shelf are the better next step. It belongs on the thinking shelf at My Urban Eatery as that group's first step, not as a title anyone is expected to play for long.