Everything parents and carers need to know to run a joyful, developmentally rich game of Simon Says with children from age two upwards.
Simon Says is one of the oldest and most quietly brilliant games in the nursery repertoire. To play it with a toddler, you need nothing more than a voice, a willing child and a little patience: one adult or older child acts as "Simon" and issues instructions, such as "Simon says touch your nose" or "Simon says hop on one foot." Children follow only when the phrase "Simon says" comes first. Any command given without it is a trap, and older players who follow it are out. For toddlers under three, the elimination rule is best set aside entirely, and the game played simply as a joyful listening exercise, with everyone joining in, laughing and moving together.
That single adaptation, dropping the competitive elimination for the youngest players, transforms Simon Says from a test of self-control into a warm, inclusive experience that every two-year-old can enjoy from their very first round. As children approach four and five, the "trap" element can be gently reintroduced, and by that point most are genuinely delighted by the challenge of catching themselves before they move.
Simon Says belongs to a family of directing games found in almost every culture on earth, known in France as "Jacques a dit" and in Germany as "Simon sagt," among dozens of other local traditions. Jaques of London, established in 1795 and the world's oldest games company, has championed exactly this kind of participatory, social play for over two centuries, and the appeal has never dimmed.
Toddlers love Simon Says for a simple reason: it gives them a legitimate excuse to be silly, move their bodies and feel connected to an adult who is paying them full, undivided attention. The game sits at the intersection of physical play, language and social bonding, which is precisely why developmental researchers regard it so highly. It asks children to listen carefully, process language, inhibit an impulse and then act, all at once, all wrapped in something that feels purely like fun.
The adult version of Simon Says runs as follows: Simon gives a string of commands, some prefaced with "Simon says" and some not. Players who act on a command without the prefix are eliminated. The last player remaining wins. For toddlers, the following adaptations make the game both accessible and genuinely useful:
What the research tells us about inhibitory control
Adele Diamond, one of the world's leading researchers in executive function development, has shown that the ability to inhibit a prepotent response, stopping yourself from doing something you are primed to do, is one of the most important cognitive skills that emerges between ages three and six. Simon Says is a playful rehearsal of exactly that capacity. Diamond's work suggests that games demanding this kind of self-regulation build neural pathways that support later academic and social success.
Begin by modelling every command yourself as you give it. Say "Simon says jump up and down" and jump enthusiastically alongside the child. This removes the pressure to decode language alone and anchors the instruction in visible, imitable movement. After a few rounds of mutual participation, step back from performing the actions yourself and let the child take them on solo, offering warm encouragement rather than correction when they get it wrong.
Once a child is following single-step commands confidently, try two-step sequences: "Simon says touch your head and then spin around." This is a gentle way to build working memory without the child ever realising they are being stretched. The game should always feel playful, never like a test.
The basic format is a springboard. Once children are comfortable, try these variations to keep sessions fresh and to target different developmental skills:
The developmental case for Simon Says is unusually well supported. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Golinkoff, whose body of work on playful learning is among the most cited in early childhood research, argue consistently that games which embed learning within social, enjoyable contexts produce deeper and more durable outcomes than direct instruction. Simon Says fits that model precisely.
Language, listening and the serve-and-return dynamic
Dana Suskind's research on early language development, and the broader findings from Hart and Risley's landmark longitudinal study, both point to the quality of verbal interaction between adults and young children as a decisive factor in language outcomes. Simon Says is a structured form of that interaction: the adult speaks clearly and purposefully, the child listens and responds, and the adult affirms. That serve-and-return pattern, as Harvard's research on the developing child describes it, is precisely what builds robust neural architecture in the early years.
Beyond language, the game develops gross motor coordination, body-part identification, sustained attention and, crucially, the ability to follow multi-step spoken instructions, a skill that nursery and reception teachers consistently identify as a predictor of early school readiness.
Simon Says thrives alongside a broader culture of participatory, social play in the home. Families who keep a repertoire of traditional games on hand tend to find that children transition more easily between structured and free play, and that their capacity for listening and rule-following grows steadily across the early years.
Jaques of London's collections of traditional games and games for all ages offer a thoughtfully curated range of exactly that kind of play, from skittles and ring toss to memory games and cooperative board games, each designed to bring children and adults together around a shared, joyful activity. These complement Simon Says by building the same core capacities: listening, waiting, responding and celebrating others.
On the value of traditional games
Jeffrey Trawick-Smith's research through the TIMPANI project found that the highest-quality play experiences for young children, those producing the greatest developmental gains, consistently involved adult engagement, clear structure and opportunities for language. Traditional games, played with warmth and flexibility, meet all three criteria simultaneously.
In a group setting, keep the pace gentle and the commands inclusive, avoiding anything that requires a skill one child may not yet have. Rotate the role of Simon frequently so that every child experiences both leading and following. Outdoors, the game gains an added dimension: more space means more physical range, and natural settings provide an ever-changing vocabulary of movement and sensation. Stuart Brown's research on play confirms that varied environments enrich the quality of play experiences considerably, and a garden or park adds texture that a living room simply cannot replicate.
For nursery practitioners, Simon Says works particularly well as a transition activity between free play and a more structured session, because it channels energy purposefully without demanding that children sit still or be silent. It is also a gentle diagnostic tool: watching how children respond to two-step commands, how long they sustain attention and whether they can hold back on a "trap" command tells a practitioner a great deal about where each child is developmentally.
Entirely normal, and not cause for any concern. At two, the inhibitory control required to hold back a response is not yet fully developed: this is a neurological reality, not a character failing. Adele Diamond's research on executive function shows that the capacity to suppress a prepotent response develops gradually across the preschool years and is not reliably in place until around age five. At two, the best approach is to treat every response as a success, ignore the distinction between "Simon says" and plain commands entirely, and simply enjoy the movement and laughter together. The inhibition will come in its own time.
Most children begin to grasp the basic logic of the game, following only "Simon says" commands, somewhere between three and a half and four years old, though there is considerable variation. By five, the majority can play the competitive version with genuine strategic thinking, catching themselves before they respond to a trap command. The key is not to hurry children towards the "proper" rules: the simplified, non-competitive version produces just as much developmental benefit, and often more, because children are relaxed rather than anxious about making mistakes.
For two-year-olds, five to seven minutes is a generous estimate. Three and four-year-olds will often sustain interest for ten to fifteen minutes, particularly when variations are introduced and the role of Simon rotates. The most reliable guide is the child: when movement becomes unfocused, when children begin to drift or when laughter gives way to distraction, the session has run its natural course. Ending on a high, before interest fully wanes, leaves children eager to play again rather than relieved it is over.
Simon Says is not a therapeutic intervention and should not replace specialist support where that is indicated. That said, for children working on receptive language, the ability to understand and process spoken words, it offers a warm and motivating context for practising exactly the skill that matters most: listening to a spoken command and connecting it to a physical action. Patricia Kuhl's research on language acquisition emphasises that social engagement is a powerful driver of language learning, and Simon Says is social engagement in its most distilled form. Many speech and language therapists incorporate command-following games of this kind into their work with young children, and parents who play them at home provide valuable, low-pressure repetition of a genuinely important skill.
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