game night :: family favorites

We are family game folks. For us, well…most of us 😉 it isn’t about winning. It really is all about having fun, and we have a lot of fun. It’s not unusual for us to end up laughing so hard we can’t breathe, and most of our inside jokes came to life during game time.

Today I wanted to share a few of our favorites with you. Some of them are classics that you’ll know and some are fun new games. I’ll be talking about 3 different types of games: numbers/colors, words, and critical thinking.

• UNO
  We play a lot of UNO. It’s great for helping younger kids learn colors and numbers, and helps older kids use critical thinking skills. Though the game is created to be a one-person-per-team game, we often play in pairs so that a younger child can work with an older child. We’ve also used a few different types of homemade card holders which are a great help for little hands! Also if you check out the options on Amazon you’ll see that there are many different kinds of UNO cards: Spider-man, Princess, Pixar, Angry Birds, Hello Kitty, TMNT, and even some teeny tiny mini games!
• Phase 10
  When we were little, my brother and I stayed with my grandmother in the afternoon until my mom got home from work. This was one of our favorite games to play with her. It’s not a fast game, but it’s a lot of fun. The point is to be the first person to complete each phase of the game. The phases are different combinations of runs and sets of number and/or color cards.
• Scrabble
  Between my house, my parents’ house, and my brother’s house, I’m pretty sure we have at least 5 different types of Scrabble boards: 2 of the original boards, a travel size one, a deluxe one that spins, and one where you can change the layout of the game by sliding in different types of pre-printed inserts under the bottom (they don’t make that one any more). You’d be amazed at how quickly children pick up “tricks of the trade” by learning unique words and their meanings. Also? My kids just found out that they now make FROZEN Scrabble Jr. board!
• Bananagrams
  This is our all-time favorite family game! In some ways it’s similar to Scrabble, but not really. You take the letters tiles and make words into your own little crossword grid. As soon as you flip over your letters, it’s a mad dash to use up all your letters before anyone else can. My older kids give the adults a run for their money sometimes. We so slow down a little bit (and help each other a lot) when the little kids are playing.
• Community
  This is a game from eeBoo that I reviewed here on SIMPLE several months ago. It continues to be a game that my children love to play. The main goal of this game is to work together to create a working community. You can add a school, post office, library, and many other parts of a community while creating roads that connect them all. I’m still very impressed with the quality of this game. It is incredibly durable. My children have yet to bend, break, or destroy any of the pieces!
• Obstacles
  This is another game I reviewed on SIMPLE, also from eeBoo. My little two (ages 3 and 5) really love this game! My older two (ages 8 and 9) play it with them and try to come up with the craziest solutions possible. The game starts by giving you a set of obstacles that you need to overcome. Things like a traffic jam or a windstorm. You choose 3 cards and have to figure out which one you will use to get yourself out of the situation. My favorite solution that my 5 year old ever came up with was that he’d use ice cream to overcome a traffic jam. When I asked him how, he said that he might not win this round, but at least he’d be happy if he could sit in the car and eat ice cream. Who can argue with that?

Does your family play games? What are some of your favorites? We always love trying new ones!