12 (Actually Fun) Games to Play With Kids

A lot of comments so probably someone already mentioned it… but if not than “Dragonwood” is what my 7 and 8 year olds are recently obsessed with. Other games they like recently – Blokus and Mancala,

We love guess who and ticket to ride. Our newest one is blokus it’s so much fun! We’ve played it so much lately, my son is 8 and he really likes it.

My my kids are 11, 8, and 6 and our favorites are Splendor (I’m addicted!!), Labyrinth (Ravensburger), Ticket to Ride, and Dweebies ( a silly card game). We play all of them at least weekly. My six year old plays all but Ticket to Ride, it’s a bit too complex for her.

Games definitely bring out personality traits, particularly competitiveness!

My kids are 7 and 15, so finding games we all enjoy is a challenge.
Our favorites:
Yeti in my spaghetti
Pass the pigs
Farkle
Uno
Sorry
Trouble
Apples to apples
Bop-it
Blink
Dominos

My favorite card game is hearts and I recently introduced it to my 10 year old son. I used to read to him for 30 minutes before bed, but one night when quarantine first started, I had the idea to mix things up. I downloaded a hearts game app on my phone and showed him how to play just by playing, with him watching. I’d explain my choices and he’d take it all in with such enthusiasm! It has quickly become the thing we both look forward to the most of each day. Now he takes the phone and selects the cards, but always waits for me to chime in with advice. He’s teaching his 8 year old brother how to play now and you can just hear the pride and excitement in his voice to feel as if he’s mastered this game. It’s so fun to watch him enjoy it as much as I do!

My 4.5 year old daughter LOVES games! We have daily tournaments of Outfoxed, Sequence for Kids, Uno, Guess Who, Spot It, Candyland, Animal Upon Animal, Sleeping Queens, Rat-a-tat Cat, etc.. Gamewright & Haba make such fun stuff. I actually got so many ideas & advice on this topic from CoJ, so thank you very much for all the recs (I very much appreciate them, especially now!)

What happened to your baby?! 9! He looks like his mum :)

Cards Against Humanity put out a ‘family’ version for older kids and there are a ton of poop/fart type jokes buy my kids, 12 and 10, end up rolling around, laughing like crazy with the questions and responses! They are offering it for free to print off their website right now. Also agree with a bunch of others about Sleeping Queens, Suishi Go, Tenzi, Blink, and puzzles have been keeping us busy!

We have a 5 yr old and we also love Guess Who!

Other favorites:
Eye Found It (we have the Richard Scarry one)
Rhino Hero – this is super fun and stressful and 3D
Machi Koro
Catan Junior
Deep Sea Adventure (a tiny pocket game, good for travel)
Uno

I’ve been trying to teach my 2.5 year old how to play Guess Who. The results are hilarious.
“Is your person wearing socks?”
“Does your person like Sesame Street?”
“Is your person a strawberry face?” (?????)

I have a 9yo and a 7yo. We play a lot of Sushi Go, Exploding Kittens and Zombie Dice. All pretty quick and easy games, but very fun!

Sushi go. Taco vs burrito. I’m nit that into games and these I actually look forward to!

Sequence, Rummikub and Phase 10

Our current favourite is called Otrio. It’s a strategy game which takes tic tac toe to the next level. Tic tac toe extreme! My almost 6 year old loves it.

When my daughter turned 3 we started playing Animals Upon Animals. We still play it almost 3 years later. A fun stacking game which is great for hand eye coordination for the little ones.

LOVE GAMES! As a kid (the youngest in the fam), I always wanted to play what the adults and big kids were playing, so there were a lot of “old timey” card games in the mix. One that surprisingly could work, especially if you played as teams, is Cribbage! Adults can do the strategizing and kids help with the counting and combos.

Also – someone mentioned Pandemic – this is another great way to involve kids in an “adult” game because it’s completely cooperative, so you’re all working together, even as you have separate turns, etc. Kick it up a notch? Pandemic Legacy is SO GOOD!! Every time you play, the board changes, there are new cards, new objectives, etc, etc. And again – it’s cooperative!

And for me, one of the best kiddo games (picked it up from a friend who worked at a summer camp in Spain) – JUNGLE SPEED!! Enough said.

Ahhh me and my husband also play the adult version of Guess Who with the personality questions! We invented it one time when we were having a drink in a bar that had board games to play and we were both in a silly mood. And you’re right…we too have found that you nearly always get the right answer!!

Love these!!

Word Witt is a brand new game that we have been LOVING! It’s really great for almost all ages and uses just the right amount of brain power :) Really can’t recommend it enough.

We have Stress Free Chess and started playing with our 6 year old several months ago. I was worried it would be too advanced and cause frustration for all of us, but it wasn’t long before he was playing without the teaching cards and begging us to play a game every minute of the day. He even plays chess with his 4 year old sister! I think it just goes to show you that we underestimate kids’ ability to learn and stretch themselves. And during all this craziness, he’s learning a whole lot about flexibility, decision-making, and strategy. No Zoom calls needed. ?

Thank you for this! Hugely helpful.
My twin 5 year old (very competitive) boys are obsessed with War and Uno. We also like Hoot Owl Hoot, Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders. I’m trying to expand the list w some more challenging games but it’s nice to have ones that they can do completely on their own!
For younger ones, all of the Zingo games are great. The Think Fun cube games are wonderful for little ones and we liked those for years, so helpful if you have age ranges. Also try Educational Insights Magic Moves wand!

Happy Salmon! So fun for all ages!

Something I rediscovered, thanks to COVID-19: elastic jump ropes (apparently known as “Chinese jump rope” in the US, while in Germany we call this “Gummitwist”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_jump_rope).

It costs almost nothing, is super fun, and even gives you a bit of exercise. It made me so happy to teach my three-year-old and five-year old something simple I used to play as a child, and has managed to keep them busy even when I want to work (you can use chairs to hold up the elastic if you don’t have three players).

Also, a few pieces of chalk for drawing on the sidewalk. Hours of entertainment!

My 3-year old loves Guess Who! And she legit beat me the other day. I was impressed, proud and a little wounded, ha!

For those wanting to play Guess Who with extra littles, we just tell her “No, my person doesn’t have yellow hair, so put all your yellow hair people to sleep!” And that extra coaching seems to help her get it and feel a sense of confidence.

The one thing that ends up being a confusion-maker, however, are the bald guys with the little tufties around their ears. Are they bald? Do tufties count as hair? And then we had a long conversation about hair tufties the other day and how Pops also has them :) Oh motherhood, you wacky adventure you.

I must confess I am not the biggest game person, though I’m utterly enchanted by this ritual. My husband and 8-year-old have been spending a good many moments when the toddler is napping or in bed already to play games. He taught her spades.

As for recommendations, my 8-year-olds absolute favorite game is telestrations. It is a great party game for families.

We love Sleeping Queens and Sushi Go! Also, Ticket to Ride is a fun game for a kid who’s into geography and building.

Some we love at our house are:
– Blokus
– Mexican Trains
– Taboo
– Scattergories
– Trivial Pursuit
– Things
– Eye Know

This is awesome! Totally doing for Christmas.