Kingdomino

Kingdomino is a good skill builder, and after the game the kids can play with the tiles, trying to rearrange them into "optimal" maps.

I would recommend looking at Patchwork, KingDomino, Lost Cities, and The Fox in the Forest.

Kingdomino: simple tike-laying game that is great at 2 or 4.

Right now we rotate easy stuff (UNO, Spot It!, Rhino Hero, Sleeping Queens, Sushi Go, Kingdomino)

Kingdomino plays great from 2-4p, and has bright colorful domino tiles that you arrange into a kingdom, trying to make groups of similar colors/terrain.

Here are some of my favorite gateway games, that are easy enough to learn, but still let you make lots of interesting skillful decisions: Tile drafting and/or building a map: Kingdomino

Kingdomino: Domino Drafting game where the goal is the make large areas of matching colors while including crowns which multiply the score of the area. The cool twist is selecting a stronger tile gives you a worse draft position in the next turn.

Perhaps Kingdomino? Very easy to pickup, nice and interactive and if you're creative enough you can tell a story about the kingdom you've created at the end of the game!

Kingdomino is even simpler: you build territories and multiply their size by crowns. There’s no extra layer between your play and your points.

Kingdomino is a bit more immediately approachable for newbies. I might actually replace Azul with Kingdomino.