Certain kids’ board games make me want to poke my eyes out (Candy Land, I’m looking at you). But this weekend, we played a game with our kids and we were all laughing hysterically…
Heads Up!, which Ellen DeGeneres plays on her show, has an app version you can play at home. You put your phone on your forehead (so your teammates can see the word but you can’t), and they have to get you to guess as many words as possible before the timer runs out. The kids’ version has words like Cheerios, clouds and Dora the Explorer. We have the best time playing and it’s so cute to watch kids try to describe everything. Even the adults get super flustered trying to win.
Three other games that are legitimately entertaining for adults: Jenga, Too Many Monkeys and Memory.
What games do you actually enjoy? That aren’t boring? Also, Toby calls Monopoly “Molopoly” and it’s so painfully cute that Alex and I made a pact never to correct him.
P.S. Four games to play while lying down, and a bedtime board game.
(Photos taken of the boys at home.)
Ticket to Ride is a super fun game that can actually be fun for both kids and adults. I play it with my 6 year old nephew and we have a great time, I play it with my friends and we have a great time too haha. Also, Anomia is a great game if you like Heads Up (it’s examples, not descriptions) and not tech based. I just looked and there is a kid version too- highly recommend this one as well! The “kids” play every year at Christmas, and we’re laughing and yelling late into the night.
Heads up is my favorite game! No one in my family would ever want to play with me but over Christmas I did it with my niecephews and we did the animal one and they LOVED IT!
‘Silly Street’ is awesome! Perfect for all ages… and very silly.
Ravensburger games are wonderful! Snails Pace Race is a family favorite…our 4-year-old grandson loves it!
We just discovered ‘left center right’ wild dice game and it’s SO MUCH FUN. you can play it with kids (we played it with my 4 and 6 year old nieces) and adults, it’s evenly fun. Plus it’s small to bring/store, only chips (or switch it for $ :-)) and 3 dice.
Charades for Kids! Each card has three options to play out, one being a picture so the littles not reading yet can participate. It’s pure comedy to watch and I was shocked at just how into they got playing it. They were so good it shocked me! Ha You can order on Amazon of course :)
We are obsessed with “Outfoxed” at our house. It’s a great who-dunnit cooperative play game where you have to figure out which fox stole the pie. It comes with clues and a decoder. My almost 5-year old loves it!
I grew up playing Uno, Yahtzee and SET with my family. All are based on chance, and a little bit of skill, which enabled the kids to sometimes beat the adults and the adults to have some fun along the way. I still play these games to this day (I’m 31) and I plan on playing them with my future unborn children someday.
Spot it! We’ve been playing this for years with our kids who are now 11 and 14. And we still play it. Great for when your waiting for food to come at a restaurant. :) it’s small and easy to carry. And Kids can beat their parents honestly!
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Spot+it&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
we LOVE this game too. I often give it as gifts too.
*You’re* not your ??
My kids (5&7) love Sleeping Queens (cards), Tenzi (dice) and Mancala… all games I really like to play with them too!
I bust out the Guess Up – the Heads Up knock-off – at adults-only get-togethers all the time and it’s always a hit! So fun!
Otrio!!!
https://www.amazon.com/Marbles-6044801-Otrio-Strategy-Based-Board/dp/B07G4LWMF3
Silly Street is our family favorite! It’s simple, fun, and we’re all laughing the whole time. It’s a good one.
Junior Molopoly! The kids buy their own ticket booths at a carnival instead of boring old houses and instead of going to jail you go to lunch. My daughter has learned so much about counting, hoarding money, being a responsible banker and owning the world. She absolutely adores it and she’s only six.
Also Uno, Harry Potter Uno specifically.
This is for younger kids — but we’ve gotten our nieces and nephews the game Monkey Around and it’s a GREAT game for kiddos (2-3 years old) that prompts them to move around. Highly recommended!
We love this one, too!
My parents used to stack the deck so I would win Candy Land quickly when we played!
time’s up!
You dont even need the official game, you can just make your own guessing cards and then it’s even more fun that everyone has a little bit of an advantage sometimes!
Happy Salmon & Avocado Smash are favorites with my nieces!
We love Hoot Owl Hoot, Sushi Go, Carcasonne, and Zooloretto. Our kids are 4 and 8 so sometimes the 4 year old plays on a “team” with someone else. If we’re just playing with our 8 year old, Ticket to Ride and Yspahan are also favourites.
The whole family plays Sushi Go and Sleeping Queens (invented by a 6-year-old!). My 7-year-old loves Ticket to Ride and Dominion (which is an adult board game that he plays with his dad; all about strategy).
Ambassador is an awesome version of Charades, really great for groups. One person is in a separate room with a list of about 10 words. Everyone else is split into two teams with each team in separate rooms. One person on each team gets the first word from the “Ambassador,” and runs back to their team to act out the word. Whoever guesses it has to run to the ambassador for the next word to act out. Whichever team gets through all of the words first wins. It is absolutely hysterical. One NYE, no one woke up with hangovers because we were too busy running around playing the game to drink! I imagine it would be a fun slumber party or kids birthday party game too.
Silly Street! I think someone got this for us and it’s almost like Cranium for kids. I really enjoy it and it’s hilarious.
There is a fun game called Pass the Pigs that is super fun- the two dice are actually little pigs and you roll them and rack up points based on how they land. They come in a little box that is easy to travel with and the landing positions have funny names like Snouter, Trotter and Leaning Jowler. It’s funny when you get to debate, “Oh that’s totally a Leaning Jowler, he’s partly on his nose!”
Spot It, Dicecapades and Left Right Center are also favorites.
My little guy is 4 and we struggle with games. Does anyone have any suggestions for something that would keep his attention?
My 4 year old likes the memory games! We also “play cards” with her. We just get a deck of cards out and do what she says with them. She’ll hand some out to us, make us pick one out of a pile. Doesn’t make sense to us but she enjoys it.
My 4 year old likes Kids on Stage, Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders!
Do you have the game Zingo? It’s similar to Bingo, and it has a cool dispenser, he might love being in charge of pushing the button to see what the next picture combo is!
Memory games, Chutes & Ladders, and Shark Bite are all good for 4. It gets more fun when they’re just a little older!
Sequence for kids is wonderful! My kids started playing it around 3 and at nearly 8, my son still enjoys it.
These Djeco games might be something you could try:
https://www.amazon.com/DJECO-Little-Balancing-Game/dp/B00P5XU5WA/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=djeco+games&qid=1565104318&s=gateway&sprefix=Djec&sr=8-3
https://www.amazon.com/Djeco-Bisous-Dodo-Bedtime-Card/dp/B002JICXUG/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?keywords=djeco+games&qid=1565104349&s=gateway&sprefix=Djec&sr=8-8
I second Zingo – that was the first game that held my girls’ attention. They (3 and 5) both love Pick Me Up, Piggie, too.
Our 4.5 year old adores Go Fish and Hoot Owl Hoot (a co-operative board game), and Race to the Roof (no idea if they still make this one as it was from my childhood). He also has fun playing on a “team” with one of us or his older sister if we’re playing a game that’s a bit too old for him.
My 5 year old received a Lucy Hammett bingo game. My 3 year old loves to play it with us, and I was surprised at how long he sat there and focused on the game.
You guys are amazing. Adding several of these to my amazon cart! Thank you. I love this CoJ community!
Spot it! We’ve been playing this for years with our kids who are now 11 and 14. And we still play it. Great for when your waiting for food to come at a restaurant. :)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Spot+it&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
My 4 year old loves “Outfoxed”. We got it as a gift on her 4th birthday and I think we’ve been playing it almost every night since (she’s almost 5).
https://gamewright.com/product/Outfoxed
One of my favorite memories: we were in Tokyo with about 12 friends, and we wanted to go to a Sumo match. They only have 100 tickets that they sell the day of, so we’re standing in line at 5am waiting for tickets, and we started playing Heads Up to pass the time. Pretty soon other people waiting in line with us were playing too, calling out hints or charading. It was such a crazy day, and as always Ellen has the super power to bring people together.
The makers of Exploding Kittens just came out with a new game called Throw Throw Burrito. We played with adults and throwing squishy burritos at each other brought out the kids in us – so much fun. I think kids would have a blast with it. My partner is a (adorable) huge board game nerd, so we got the kick-starter version a few weeks ago, but I believe it’s available to buy now/very soon!
YES! My boyfriend just got this and it is seriously so fun. He bought the Kickstarter version that came with two versions of the indoor version plus an outside version with blow up burritos, safety goggles and sweatbands. It’s ridiculously fun.
When my brother was little he would say when it was raining and we were in the car – turn on the swipper swipers for wind shield wipers. We still call it that and we have kids of our own.
Heads up is so much fun with any age group. Not sure what the recommended minimum age is but I bet Ticket To Ride would be good with older kids. I love to play it with my adult friends.
Rat a tat cat! So fun-
I was going to say this too!
We play a LOT of UNO, but I’m ready for something new. I have Sleeping Queens and a few people recommended it, so I’m going to take it on our camping trip next week.
My nephew calls UPS “youpus” and now the whole family does, it makes me laugh every time.
Did you see this article recently about Candy Land? The game was invented by a schoolteacher during the polio epidemic, which explains its design for imagination and adventure (and also that the players were definitely a captive audience). https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/07/how-polio-inspired-the-creation-of-candy-land/594424/
I’m a huge fan of Monopoly Deal. It’s the card version of monopoly, and games only last about 15-20 minutes! I love bringing it on camping trips, and my husband and friends (and mom!) love playing. I don’t know if it would be as great with young kids. After all, playing with the houses, pawns, and fake money is the best part of the game when you’re little!
Monopoly deal is great with kids! My 7 year old twins love it and it’s one of our go to family games.
Heads Up is the BEST! I started a game with a couple of friends once on a long subway ride in the city and by the time we got off, we had half the train car playing with us. Everyone started off in their usual riding-the-subway funk and by the end of it everyone was laughing and participating.
Trouble and Animal Upon Animal! Don’t be fooled by the travel version of Animal upon Animal, though. Spring for the full-size! Even adult hands are not dextrous enough to maneuver the teeny pieces.
Growing up, my family and I would play “The Animal Game,” a 20-questions type game where you have to guess what animal someone’s thinking off. Is it a mammal? Is it a predator? Can it fit in a microwave? My younger brothers would always ask in all seriousness, “Is it a female?” to which you had to say in equal seriousness, “Sometimes.” To keep from cheating, you had to whisper the animal in my mom’s ear. Because my youngest brother was the loudest whisperer, we all had to holler while he told my mom his animal. We play it to this day and we’re all adults now.
We played this ALL THE TIME with my kids growing up but we said “is it bigger than a bread box”? So much fun!! Made me smile when I saw your comment.