What games do you like for kids? We found this one on a stoop the other day, and the boys have now played it 946,255,308 times. (The whole house is filled with squeals!) Here are nine other classics…
Do you have any other recommendations? I’m curious to hear!
P.S. Slamdunk birthday presents, and how to inspire kids to play on their own.
(Photo of a 1973 Uno set.)
My 5 year old really likes to play Outfoxed, Rat a tat Cat, Sleeping Queens, Crazy Eights….. We will be getting Memoirrrr really soon! Excited for it! I’m thinking of getting Dragonwood, but maybe all the math might be too advanced for her?
Sleeping Queens! It’s a great card game- a family favorite. Another great one is the Busytown game, which is collaborative. We also enjoy an old-fashioned game of cards, like Crazy Eights and King’s corners!
Am I the only one who grew up loving Operation? I remember playing that and thinking., “yeah I could definitely be a doctor” lol
Charades for kids and Pictionary!
LOVE Slamwich! I remember spending my summers at the pool as a kid and this was a popular game we played during rest breaks. Of course, they were all warped from our little watery hands. <3
My son is 3.5 so we have to do simple games with him. He loves King Domino and Richard Scarry’s Busy Town eye search. We love the Busy Town game because it’s cooperative and you win (and lose!) together.
BLINK! it’s so fun…from 7,8 year olds to adults. It’s a quick attributes game. We even have BLINK! tournaments.
Ha ha! I thought we were the only ones who had this game!
My boys are 7 and 9, so just a bit older, but we play a lot of games. Uno is our go to to bring to restaurants (just in case). At home we love YamSlam (like a faster paced, less complicated Yahtzee)- we even bought a travel version to bring on our recent road trip. Monopoly Jr. is still a good one, too, because it is uncomplicated and does not take as long as the original. The condo where we stayed for our spring break ski vacation had Sequence, so that is our current obsession!
Slamwich is the bom dot com! and my siblings and I (all in our 20s) STILL play uno together. Started as something to do on family trips and I guess we never really stopped. We’re really cool in case you can’t tell :)
Rat a tat cat!
Yes! And Sleeping Queens! And Exploding Kittens! Ticket to Ride-my first journey. Qwirkle. Catan jr. Qwixx, Blink, Spot it (and jr.), Sequence for kids, For Toby maybe Phase 10 and Skip Bo and Dutch Blitz, and similar to that is Nertz (or solitaire frenzy.) Perfection is great! My love Battle ship, thinking about getting the electronic version from Target. I was looking at My first bananagrams. Do your boys like it?
Phase 10 and Monopoly Deal are great games for the whole family. Games are a great way to unplug
My three-year-old loves Feed the Woozle. It has silly (gross) snacks that are fed to the woozle in goofy ways on a spoon. It’s cooperative, funny and it helps pre-schoolers master some new motor skills and develop a sense of humor. So fun!
For older kids and adults, Ticket to Ride is a blast. And I’m convinced it must make one smarter, because my brain hurts when I play.
There’s a Jr version! My 5 year old loves it!
UNO will always be one of the greatest games! And LIFE! The super old versions…so good!
My two 6YOs are likewise obsessed with Uno, and I just introduced them to Sequence, which has quickly become another favorite!
We play a lot of games with my 7.5 year old stepdaughter — even some for adults. Our favorites at the moment are Catan Junior, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride. Some are harder for her than others, but she can beat us at all of these, and it’s so much more fun to play competitively than to let her win or be bored ourselves now that she is older.
I played a bunch of Bananagram games on my trip to LA with my twin and our friend :) AND played a few games of UNO and dominoes on my date…it was fun ;)
Trouble, a thousand times. My son won’t stop playing it and before we finally bought him the game (it was on back order) he couldn’t stop talking about it since he plays it at his daycare. He loves me a lot (as a 4 year old should), more than candy and our dog, but he told me he loves Trouble more.
War card game, and guess who! Love spot it!
Spot It is a favorite with our 5 year old.
A new favorite is Bounce Off that both our 8 year old and 5 year old enjoy playing.
Great topic — added several new games for our family and my classroom library thanks to the commentary. Sincere thanks for posting and for all who shared.
My 8 year old nephew loves Settlers of Catan, he caught on quicker than anyone else! And my 3 year old nephew loves Candy Land, and just candy in general :)
Monopoly Deal (so addictive) and mancala (SO SO addicting). My 8-year-old loves them. For my very temperamental 4-year-old cooperative games are da bomb. Count Your Chickens for the win!
We have Thanksgiving tradition to play Apples to Apples after dessert. It has morphed into playing the game with the craziest hat or wig you can find after Halloween. People who stop by think it’s the best game ever they ever seen
I love this tradition! Apples to Apples is super fun.
Love this topic! I have two boys (almost 12 and 9) and some of our faves are Monopoly Empire (quicker than regular monopoly and super fun), Exploding Kittens, The Game of Life, Uno, Catan Junior, and recently (on a trip back to Brooklyn to visit my parents) we played my old Trivial Pursuit Junior!! The boys loved it.
My 6yo loves Connect Four. But is also a very sore loser (tears and everything), so we are slowly introducing games like Sorry.
God bless all you mamas out there who can play endless hours of Candy Land because it MAKES.ME. WANT. TO. SCREAM.
On the flip side, we love playing games. However there is no taking it easy on the kids. My hubs and I are in it to win it. We’ve developed quite the collection of cooperative games like Pete the Cat, Sculpt it (by the Cranium folks) Race to the treasure or Forbidden Island.
It’s also amazing to watch when we are playing a competitive game and the 4 year old comes out of nowhere to completely destroy the rest of the family.
SKIP-BO! I believe that is the natural progression from Uno…haha. Also, I’m pretty sure Perfection gave me high anxiety as a child and still gives me anxiety just thinking about it.
SKIP-BO FOREVERRRR!
I LOVE this game. I’m constantly asking my kids to play with me.
Also, Dutch Blitz makes me almost pee my pants I get so excited and into it! (The instructions are awful. Check out YouTube for a how to video).
Try Rat-a-Tat-Cat! We all love it.
Aaaah, UNO!!! Def a favorite over here too!
I have a 9 yo and a 3.5yo.
The little one likes Chomp, the Game of ladybirds by Orchard toys and Sneaky snacky squirrel.
I volunteer to play board games in my eldest daughter’s school twice a month and the gr 2 to 4 kids love: Pop to the shops by orchard toys, Woolfy by Djeco, Outfoxed, 7 familles (French card game), Melissa and Doug Suspend game, Monopoly jr, Qbitz, Spot it, Mobi and of course, UNO!!
I love this post. I took some notes. Thank you!
Playing board games at your kid’s school? what a genius idea!
I used to play Mastermind with a five-year-old I nannied for. The problem-solving skills he used to break the codes were super impressive! My husband and I love Sequence.
I have so many happy memories playing Slamwich with my mom at the laundromat. We’d play for hours, and it seemed like such a special treat, despite spending an afternoon doing laundry.
I had forgotten about that game, so thanks for the happy reminder. :)
Exploding Kittens! Has a great strategy that kids can catch on to fast, and the cards are super funny.
Love these recommendations! My 5 year old is board game obsessed. Favorites at our house are Clue Jr., Race to the Treasure, Guess Who, Zingo, and classic card games like Crazy Eights and War.
I guess Uno is a universal crowdpleaser! I am a special needs teacher and I host a “boardgame-club” every Thursday. The boys I work with have a really hard time when it comes to turn-taking and waiting. Last week, we played
UNO for 30 minutes without a rude word or a fight! What a huge success!! Thanks for all the ideas.
I guess Uno is an universal crowdpleaser! I am a special needs teacher and I host a “boardgame-club” every Thursday. The boys I work with have a really hard time when it comes to turn-taking and waiting. Last week, we played
UNO for 30 minutes without a rude word or a fight! What a huge success!! Thanks for all the ideas.
Blokus! We got a set for our kids for Christmas, and we are all hooked, from 6 to 43 (and up – the grandparents bought a set after visiting, too). Also, Dizios is good for a dominoes alternative.
“Spot it” is the best! We play it at dinner parties with friends all the time. I love that there are 5 different games in one and that it packs so easily into a suitcase or bag. I always travel with it and love pulling it out at the airport to kill time! SO FUN!
Perfection! I haven’t seen or thought about that game in forever, but I *loved* it as a kid. Our nephew really enjoys Set Junior (https://www.setgame.com/setjunior), which we got him after he saw us playing Set.
Love the ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ games–they promote kindness and cooperation over competitiveness! We have ‘Race to the Treasure’ and ‘Hoot Owl Hoot’ but the others look great as well. Also, my 3 and 6 year olds love to play ‘Zingo’ together. It’s fast-paced and fun!
when they’re a bit older get Monopoly Deal – it’s the living best card game and the only version of Monopoly worth playing. Suitable for kids from age 8 and up I’d say, and bonus: adults love it. https://fave.co/2H8ydej
My brother and I LOVED playing “Sorry!” and also endless games of Slap Jack and Speed. I remember that I would always theatrically slap the wrong face card to crack him up. My family was also big into Yahtzee!
When my nephews were very small, the eldest would truck off to kindergarden and so the youngest and I would have “coffee dates” at Borders Books. Over tiny cups of vanilla steamers, I would have my ass handed to me over and over again at Parcheesi. All this to say, it’s a great classic for all ages.
Our family loves Otrio! It’s a fancy version of tic-tac-toe with three different size rings so you can win multiple ways. We had it out at a holiday party we hosted and 4 families ended up going home and purchasing it they loved it so much.
Math teacher here – otrio is a great game for working through strategy. We love it too!
Games are our annual Christmas Eve present for the kids. It lets them open something that day, and then provides us with entertainment to allow the sugar high to wear off before bedtime. We got them Fibber and Connect Four this past one (they’re 5 and 8). Favorites from previous years include Mousetrap, Sorry, Uno (always and forever), Candyland (which I think they’ve probably outgrown at this point, but they still enjoy), and Yeti in My Spaghetti. I Can Do That! was a favorite when they were younger.
Oh, and my older daughter just bought herself Dragonwood with her allowance, and loves it.
Yes to Connect Four! Also great travel sizes available.
Oh, and have you discovered Sleeping Queens? It’s a card game designed by a 6-year-old girl! My kid loves it.
My son is almost 6, and he’s super into Ticket to Ride. It’s an adult board game (there’s a junior version but he scoffs at it) that involves building railroads using different color train cards and learning routes. It’s great for developing an affinity to geography. Speaking of, on road trips, we play the cities game: you start with any city, and the next person has to name a city that starts with the last letter of the city the previous person said. You can play with just words or with names or with animals or whatever, too. Bonus: no props needed.
My eight year old grandson is also into the adult version of Ticket to Ride.
Dizios, a twist on Dominos, is another great game for kids and adults that incorporates spatial awareness, strategy, and counting. We’ve been playing since he was 5. He always kept score using llll method to learn to count by 5’s. Now he makes up his own rules to make it trickier.
we love this game with my 7 year old stepdaughter as well!
My 7 year old loves Ticket to Ride Jr. We got it for him when he turned 6 and we love playing it with him too, so much better than many kids’ games! We love the adult version too.
My husband taught our son chess when he was 5 and he loves playing it and goes to chess club at his school. He thinks it’s so cool that people have been playing it for hundreds of years!
I’m super impressed with kids this young playing Ticket to Ride!! I find it hard as an adult lol.
My nieces and nephews are obsessed with the game Dobble. They get so into it, and it’s a nice game for all ages.
We love playing Skip-Bo with our nephews! We’re a family of card sharks and love watching my grandma patiently using Skip-Bo to teach my sister’s oldest boy basic card-playing strategy, (and also gently beating him every. single. time.)
One game I am (and always have been) loathe to play is Monopoly – but there’s a new version that is at least faster, as it uses credit cards(!) My boyfriend, (whose Polish parents were refugees from communism in the ’80’s), was raised on Monopoly – it was the only game they had in the house! (I guess to get their new American sons some early experience with capitalism?!) He’s the only one we know who can sit and play g-damn Monopoly with Rowan for hours and hours…!
Yay! Skip-Bo! I also come from a family of card sharks and Skip-Bo became our go-to game that we’d sit around playing for hours.
Love it! Yes, the adults tend to continue playing even after the kids go to bed! :)
Love hearing about all the games! We received Sushi Go Party as a gift and it has a bit of a learning curve at first, but has become a family favorite. Also highly recommend Wits and Wagers as an excellent family game. We’ve played it with several families spanning a wide age range and its super fun. I’m a big fan of Ticket to Ride. My daughter (age 8) and I had a nightly game for awhile this winter.
My husband and I play Sushi Go just the two of us. It’s much more fun with a lot of people, but it’s a good one for a coffee shop date!
I am one of 4 and my mom gives us a family game every Christmas that we all enjoy while we’re home for the holidays (with spouses and kids, there is a total of 14 of us) and then each family takes a turn keeping the game at their house throughout the year. Some of our favorite games have been: Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Set, Bananagrams. We haven’t yet tried Pandemic but I’ve secretly told my mom that that needs to be next on the list.
djeco card games are great for kids; cute graphics and a variety of different games. I bought some on holiday in Canada and my nieces and nephews loved them so much that it became my Christmas present to them that year to order a bunch off Amazon. My favourite of them is Piou Piou which although is easy for kids 5+, it is played in our house more by adults with a bottle of wine on the table. There’s not so much strategy that it impedes conversation but is still entertaining with the chance to stitch each other up.
We also have Beasties, Sakapuss, Mixamatou, Mistigri and Pipolo. All are great.
A note: when buying Djeco, be aware that some of the games are actually the same game with a different theme so check that the description sounds different, or, if you’re daft like me, be prepared to on-gift the double ups. :)
I discovered these in Canada as well – while exploring Montreal. Mixamatou is our favorite, and great for all ages, and easy for little ones
We’re also big fans of Gamewright. One of our current favorites is Wig Out. We’re also loving Brain Freeze and Harry Potter Clue. When my daughter was a little younger, we liked Feed the Woozle; Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel; and Busytown. Games are so fun. It’s been one of my favorite things as she’s grown….getting to play more and more games with her that are fun for me too!
The “Card Holder for Little Hands” is an absolute game changer! My kids can play card games, but they can never manage to hold the cards.
I always keep these in my “gift closet” because we gift card games constantly! It helps my littles to not be frustrated over the cards.
Lately, we’ve been playing a lot of strictly verbal games when we’re on the go or in the car. No equipment required. The Alphabet game, 20 questions, 2 Truths and a Lie, or just made up games, like: Find something with stripes! Find someone walking more than one dog!
Uno! That is truly a game that brings joy to all ages. 2 summers ago I traveled to Sardinia and rented a house there with 10 friends. After the end of adventuring each day we’d slowly pile into the house and gather around the table for several rounds of Uno and wine. Take me baaaaack.
My 2yo doesn’t really understand games yet (although we do play a DinoTrux matching game sometimes!) but my husband and I used to love playing Guillotine. You line up nobles and try and take them away from the other person. We would get super competitive! We also used to frequent a board games cafe and play Ca$h’n Gun$ and Ghost Blitz.
We love family game night. It is a great time to bond! We always play Qwirkle, Parchessi, Trouble, Sorry, Clue, and if we agree not to get too emotional… we play… RISK!
YES to Risk – the computer version has helped us speed up the game of Risk as well
We played Uno for hours at lunch and recess in elementary school (late 70s, early 80s) until someone from the conservative church in town complained that there were “card games” going on in the school and then we couldn’t do it anymore. Still rankles, man.
Wow, Uno as a bad influence, that’s a new one!
The guy that invented Uno went to my church growing up!
Sleeping Queens and Rat-a-Tat-Cat were huge favorites when my son was in his sixes and sevens. I also endorse Labyrinth….great game and beautiful to look at while you play. I haven’t seen it mentioned here yet, so I suggest Set. It’s a game of pattern recognition and kids can play with grown ups. For beginners, age is no advantage and the game has patterns-in-science origins.
I work in a middle school (grades 6, 7, & 8) and we have a math games club. We play Set, Rummikub, Sequence and Labyrinth. For fun that uses numbers, Farkle always gets the kids laughing. One of the things I learned with my middle schoolers is that they love to play and love to play with grown ups. It’s a great way to practice sportsmanship and build community.
I second (and third) both Sleeping Queens and Labyrinth!! We play especially the former every weekend. My 6yo and 10yo both enjoy it (as do their parents).
Another good MS math-y game is Q-bitz and Q-bitz Extreme – 4 players compete to make a pattern displayed on a card from 16 cubes. Very good for spatial understanding (reflection, rotation, symmetry, etc). SET is awesome too. You might try Otrio as well, mentioned earlier.
Best Topic ever! (Probably have said this a hundred times on CoJ already.)
Growing up in Germany there was a huge variety of board games at our house as well as at the kindergarden and after school care, so it is super hard to limit myself with suggestions.
When I was a toddler “Snails Pace Race” was always a winner as was “4 first games” by Ravensburger. I even remember playing those even though I must’ve been about 3 years old.
Later on we basically owned every game by Haba, a company well known for their use of beautiful wooden play pieces. I guess the most classic from Haba would be “Orchard”. My mum still keeps all the Haba games from my childhood well wrapped up in the attic in hopes of giving them to me if I ever have children (still missing the male counterpart for this to happen, but ‘hope is the last to die’ as we say in German).
I can also confirm that “Labyrinth” was a great hit in primary school as were “Uno”, “SkipBo” and “Elfer raus”.
For pre-teen and adults alike I’d recommend: “Settlers of Catan”, “Bohnanza”, “Fantasy Wizard”, “Cranium”, “Taboo” and “Phase 10”.
For more advanced players definitely recommend “Pandemic”. So nice to not play each other but cooperatively.
Lastly, I also wanted to link to an Economist article on board games which was published recently in their magazine (includes great recommendations for advanced players):
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/tabletop-generals
LOVE HABA games!
I LOVE HABA GAMES! My first Orchard is the first game my littles play and they love it! We have Monza to-go (which is preferred over the board game because they can make a new race track every time.)
We have a 7 & 10 year old and playing games with them is absolute joy. Lately, the whole family has been hooked on Sequence! It’s so surprising to learn that your kids are great at strategizing!
When they were little we played a LOT of Tier Auf Tier, and Connect Four is still a big hit!
Sequence is so much fun! We have the kids’ version as well and enjoy playing it with our 4 and 7 year olds.
My girls are 12 and 7. Favorite games are Forbidden Island, Sleeping Queens, Sushi Go, Exploding Kittens and Ticket to Ride. We just introduced them to adding Dexter and Alvin (a dinosaur and alien) to Ticket to Ride. It was a hit, but we all had to change our strategies. Lately, they’ve been playing not only with their dad and I, but are also pulling games out when their friends come over.
Chutes and Ladders was my favorite, but we also loved Uno and Yahtzee!
When we got a bit older, we enjoyed Monopoly. My sister was usually the banker — which figures; she now works in finance!
My 4.5 year old is into pick up sticks! she also likes “old maid” but our set is full of awful gender and social stereotypes so we have been thinking of making our own set out of cardstock.
We love Blokus, Quixx, and Apples to apples!
BLOKUS – again, another great math-y game
Right now our favorite games are wielding spatulas, running from a diaper change, and turning the humidifier on. Haha, can’t wait to play the games you mentioned with my now 15 month old!
We have just started playing games with my nearly 4yr old, I have had some many recommendations for rat-a-tat-cat so we will get that for his birthday.
When we were kids we used to love UNO, pass the pigs and Jenga. We used to chant Jenga! Jenga! Jenga! when it was getting tense, until we were virtually screaming it….not so peaceful ?
I might start with Sleeping Queens with your 4 year old. We have found that we need to play on a team with ours younger than 6 because there is addition and strategizing. Blink is a great one at that age!
My now 4 year old discovered connect 4 last summer and was instantly obsessed. Also Zingo and goold old-fashioned tic tac toe.
A nice idea for a child I have to admit :) Maybe son’s case in the near future.
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