What Board Games Do You Like Playing With Kids?

Guess Who is a classic. This Christmas, I spent hours making my own version with faces of people we know. My husband and I play and instead of asking questions like “Are they wearing a hat?” we use questions like “Were they at my birthday party?” or “Do they live in our city?”. The project took a long time but so worth it!

For Christmas we got our kids throw throw burrito and the uzzle. Both probably better for slightly older kids (6+). Throw throw burrito gets pretty raucous!

My girls are 5 and 7. We are currently loving Blockus, Kingdomino and Sleeping Queens. Charades for kids is always funny (picture a 5 year old laying flat and unmoving on the ground being a sandwich). I’m also working on teaching my 7 year old gin rummy which I grew up playing with my grandparents. I am hoping to dedicate more times for family games next year.

My favorite games to play with my kids (or anyone) are Azul, Scrabble, and Rummikub. However, my kids would probably say Clue.

It’s so wacky, but we like Quelf. Sometimes I have to vet the prompts before I hand it to the kiddos, but truly, it’s so weird and silly and nonsensical, that you MUST throw logic out the door in order to have fun!

Our family loves Scrabble. My mother-in-law is a strategic, Scrabble Master (it’s not about how complex the word is, it’s all about board placement) and my boys strive to beat her. We also love chess, and for some reason one of my sons loves ‘The Game of Life’ – which always reminds me too much like actual adult life but I guess that’s the appeal when you’re 7. In winter time when it gets dark early, we love to black out their bedroom and play ‘Shadows in the Forest’ – simple but creepy and fun.

Dobble is the best game ever!!

My son has in home speech therapy and she basically just comes and plays board games with him for 30 min once a week. All three kids have joined (though only one of them works on his S blends and L sounds) and board games are getting a renewal in our family! huzzah. This reminded me to bring some board games to my in laws house for Christmas (definitely bananagrams with the adults). WE LOVE OUTFOXED! and race to the treasure. My kids crushed a 300 piece puzzle today and enjoyed chutes and ladders with the speech therapist.

My 7 year old just “leveled-up” from our beloved Outfoxed to Clue. We ALL have fun playing it!
Other favorites: Sleeping Queens and Trash Pandas

We’ve upped the challenge level on Guess Who by asking elaborate questions like “Does your person wear socks with sandals?” Or “Has your person ever said the word ‘indubitably’ in a sentence?” It’s super fun, and hilarious how close you can get to the right person even with the most ridiculous questions!

PERFECTION??? SO STRESSFUL.

I saw a meme that was like “The kids who were forced to play Perfection are now all in therapy.” TRUE

Ticket to Ride

With a wide age range in our children, we’re always hunting for games that are fun for all ages but don’t require reading or particularly intense strategy. The best:
Dragamino
Uno (there’s a reason it’s a classic!)
Carcassonne
Labyrinth
Tenzie (dice game)
Scrabble Jr (surprisingly fun, esp after we added tile trading)

Hoyle has a kids card game set that is PERFECT for little hands with adorable and gender-neutral themes. With a standard deck, Garbage is good because the cards don’t need to be held, the rules are simple, and it’s fun.

For older kids (readers/strategists): Clue, Telestrations, Apples to Apples, Rummicube, Cribbage, and all of the above

We loved Sequence for Kids when they were younger then Ticket to Ride as they got older. I hate Monopoly but the card game, Monopoly Deal, is always fun and fast to play anywhere.

Love playing guess who with my nieces! We always do multiple rounds. Also love dobble. There will be yelling and squealing (and I don’t mean the kids). But my absolute favourite is ludo. My sister and I will have a very serious ludo tournament at Christmas.

Our faves:

•WISE & OTHERWISE (available on Ebay) which requires users to come up with convincing endings to a saying or proverb. You score when you correctly guess the ending (or someone incorrectly guesses yours). We routinely play with kids and grandparents and inevitably end up in hysterics. Participants need to be able to write a little creatively or buddy up with a helper.
•PICTIONARY, BOGGLE, SCRABBLE, RUMMIKUB, CLUECOLORKU is a great solo (or collaborative) game – sodoku with colored marbles in place of numbers (beg-adv)
•SPOT-IT and SET great for portability (all ages)
•OTHELLO (elementary) & CHINESE CHECKERS (elementary age+)

My 5 year old loves to play draftosaurus, azul, genius squares, as well as ticket to ride: first journeys, dragomino and my first carcassonne. We’ve also recently introduced potion explosion which he picked up surprisingly well, and taco cat goat cheese pizza is great for groups and with the cousins (and slow granddad!).

Jenga is such a great game! Love going to a bar on a Sunday afternoon for a beer and some Jenga action. People are always so involved in our game. My boyfriend was so excited to get it for his birthday a few years ago. My mom and I took a cruise pre-C. And there were 2 older couples we always saw playing in the morning while drinking coffee. A game for all the ages. We really love Phase 10 as well. Uno sized card set, so easy to transport. Will be taking it on vacation with us this week.

I have bought so many games because of CoJ in hopes that my family will become a “game” family, but it’s a struggle to get them to play, we end up arguing and the games are get dusty in the cabinet. Sigh… I’m not sure if this is a deficiency on our part or we’re just not game people.