This is relevant to my interests. The kid digs games. So far she's a big fan of Sleeping Queens and Sushi Go while also being merciless at Uno. this is about the time you discover that the games of your childhood that you stopped playing? Yeah, you stopped playing them because they sucked. Sorry is awful. Parcheesi is awful. Dominos? For some reason Bones is hella cooler and mathematical than you remember and you probably weren't allowed to play it because Ice Cube did. We've added Survive to the rotation (although it's still under the tree) because I remembered it fondly and am pretty sure the idea for Catan came from basically reversing Survive and removing the sharks and sea monsters (IE making it lame). I'll probably add Photosynthesis before the season is out. Anybody else got anything to add? She's six but plays like she's older. Managed to get through 20 chess games this quarter, even winning two of them despite being the youngest kid by far.
There's a less advanced version available named Ticket to Ride: First Journey. Might want to start there.
Is that one still a Target exclusive? I think it was when it came out, but not sure at this point. It might also be worth checking out the Dice Tower's 12 Kids' Games of Christmas video. It's somewhat geared towards dexterity games, but there are some good other ones there too.
There's a variant of Carcassonne I like even better, named The Ark of the Covenant. I like the temples of Ark more than the cloisters of Carcassonne, counting sheep and wolves more than counting towns, and I like that moving the ark gives you something to do when you can't (or don't want to) place a meeple.