(Yes, we have many board games – I couldn’t fit them all in this picture.)
Pre-babies, my husband and I loved a good game of Scrabble – we played all the time (and he lost/still loses all the time). On our honeymoon in Spain, he taught me how to play gin rummy and other card games, that were always more fun after a couple of bevvies. Funny enough, I cannot remember how to play any of those card games anymore. (The delicious bevvies may have something to do with that).
Not to worry – I do remember how to play Crazy Eights, Fish, and War – the childhood staples. But I’ll be honest – I’m partial to a fun board game. Thankfully, our 6 year old LOVES board games, (read: goes ape shit for board games), so we now have a family game night at least once a week. It’s nice to turn off all the electronic crap, and get back to old school fun. Right now, we leave it up to the little people to decide on the games for the night. I’d say right now, the popular ones in our house are BLOKUS, MONOPOLY JR and Crazy Old Fish War.
Regardless what games you own or like to play, it doesn’t really matter. Family game night is about staying close to home, and having fun with the people that matter most. What’s better than that?
What are some of your favorite board games, with and without the kids?
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to say that growing up I loved to play board games. I think once my little guy becomes a little older, we will be buying lots of board games and playing them all the time. It is such a good idea to have some good old fashioned fun! Have a great weekend!
can I come over and play too? I love board games! i cant wait till the boys are a tiny bit older to have game nights.
Our 5 year old loves board as well as card games. Blokus, Zingo, Scrabble Jr, Set game are our favorite these days. Oh, Candyland pops it’s head still…. And I really do not like it!
you should get Pictureka. I haven’t had sufficient amounts of coffee to know if that’s spelled correctly, but we love it. Oh and Bananagrams, which is like Scrabble but you play without a board and each player builds off their own words. awesome.
I can’t wait until my two can play board games. We have a couple preschool games now which they enjoy now so once they get older I think we will be having many Family Game Nights.
We have family night once a week too. But sometimes we play the Wii. Right now we play a lot of Uno and Aggravation (like Sorry) because everyone but the 2 yo can play. My kids love it.
We play the Wii together too – but we only play Mario Kart since video games are definitely NOT my thing.
My husband and I also used to play Scrabble a lot! I can’t wait til my kids are old enough so we can have family game night too! Right now it’s all about the Hungry Hungry Hippos, Jenga & Operation!
My kids LOVE Hungry Hippos – have the fun is trying to find the little white balls that go flying (for them anyway!)
I used to love playing Psychologizer – adults only! And for kids, I enjoy playing Trouble with my kids – an old fave of mine too.
backgammon! Skill and luck – you can’t beat it (or me). Pre Husband I loved scrabble but he’s dislexic so no more…
At least it looks like you kept all of the games together…somehow all of our game pieces end up in a cabinet, under the couch or in the garbage.
My husband and I are fond of hosting game nights with our friends and we are an awesome Trivial Pursuit team, but lately our favourite game has been Cranium Pop 5. We bought it on sale, and I didn’t expect to like it but it’s one of the more popular ones we have.
We’ll get the baby into games when she’s old enough, and I look forward to it.
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boy did you open the flood gates!
Our tween girls love Mad Libs, Scattergories, Apples to Apples, and Backseat Drawing (the latter of which I won in an email contest put forth by Out of the Box publishing, the game makers. that’s the best kept secret I know…. there must so few people subscribing to their emails that when they do a contest and pick 10-20 winners, almost everyone wins. i have won at least three contests with them). Anyhow, all their faves are easy to set up, and you can play for a long time or a short time, so if they want to have game time after dinner we’re hard pressed to say no to these.
If we have a dedicated game night, they like to play Life. If they’re playing by themselves, they like to play Guess Who.
I like to play Blokus with them, but they don’t like it any more because I always win.
My husband and I like playing scrabble together. We are perfectly matched, skill wise. Also, on dinner/starbucks dates, I like to haul along the game cards to Loaded Questions or Zobmondo – as a matter of fact, I was just trolling ebay TODAY to buy some new cards since we’ve gone through most of our questions already! They make for great conversation starters when you’re hanging out with someone you know too well
or when you want to avoid talking about stuff going on in real life.
As an aside, they cleaned up Zobmondo, which when I first bought it 10-15 years ago had some really crude questions in it; now you can buy the “classic” [aka clean] version, a junior version, and a NC-17 version. As it happens, Loaded Questions is now available in those three basic categories too. I just emailed with the president of THAT company today (told you I was shopping) and he mentioned that in 2 weeks they’re coming out with 4 new travel versions: classic, parenting 101, kids, and pop culture. They’re also opening an online store, AND he clarified for me (in case you wondered) that there is no overlap in questions between the board versions and the travel versions that are coming out. SWEET. And no, I’m not getting paid to say that, your question was just VERY timely!
My toddler is just thaaaaaaaaaat much too little to play organized games, but I’m looking forward to hi-ho cherry-o (i always loved that as a kid) and Elefun.
Wow – Thanks for all the suggestions. There are several games there that I haven’t heard of before including Zobmondo. I’m going to check them out!
Clarify: we went on ebay to buy an oldschool version of Life because the new version BITES.
Oh and when I was a kid we played Aggravation (original 4 sided version) or Life just about every weekend. And Rummikub, which is okay, but not as dear to my heart as the other two.
Holy hell, you have a lot of board games. Wowsers.
Guess what — we just had a Friday Game Night tonight! We didn’t really plan to do it, but it was really fun, and I think I’d like to incorporate a game night once a week. We played Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? because my boy just got it for his birthday. Our game choices are either that, Chutes and Ladders (is it weird that I’m 34 and I still LOVE that game?) and a sort of broken Elmo game. Oh, and then Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit which aren’t too 3-year-old friendly. Clearly we have a long way to go with our board game collection.
Love that you do this. We used to play a lot of board games in college that involved the bevvies you talk about.
I still love board games. When your kids are a bit older, try catchphrase, SOOO much fun.
Happy SITS Saturday Sharefest!!!!
The last game I played in a group was Pictionary with my hubby as a partner – didn’t work out so well! So as to avoid divorce courts, I’ve decided not to ‘partner’ with him on something that requires test of skill again.
I played Junior Monopoly with my 4-year-old which was fun but again a test of patience. Looking forward to when he’s a little older and we can have family games night. Friday is family disco night at our place!
My family loves board games too. My DH and I used to play Drunk Scrabble back in the day B.C.
I just went through our stacks and stacks of games to weed through them and donate some to charity. We just don’t have to as much time to play ALL of them anymore, but I kept our favorites.
My youngest love chutes and Ladders and my oldest love Clue Jr and Monopoly Jr. She also LOVES a mean game a WAR, but we typically play that game when we go camping.
Oh gosh, I thought I had a lot. You have me beat. I love CRANIUM!!!! I love love love it. Have you played?
Happy Saturday Sharefest!!!
Alex aka Ma What’s For Dinner
http://www.mawhats4dinner.com
I have never played Cranium, although I’ve heard that it’s really fun. Definitely one for the list! Thanks.
Just stopping by from SITS to wish you a very happy SITS Saturday Sharefest! Have a great weekend!
Happy Saturday Share Feat!
My husband and I both LOVE board games. We have a closet full of them, but since we had Jamison 3 years ago we don’t play much. If we play a came we tend to play online, scrabble, checkers, battleship, etc. We haven’t started board games yet with Jamison. I just assumed he was still too young and would lose interest. But you’ve inspired me to start. I think we’ll go buy some kid friendly games this week! Thanks!
Girl, I am so late to the game here. And you only posted this yesterday! You are so super duper popular, I can’t even stand it! I feel so privileged that you and I are Twitter friends. I am envious of your giant game collection. I’ll take some of those off your hands for you, just in case you wanted to lighten the load…
Our family loves board games too!
In fact, we love them so much that our 4 children started doing video reviews of games and created a blog for posting the reviews.
http://www.TheBoardGameFamily.com
The tough part is that our list of games we want to play has grown even more now.
I love to play games but my husband doesn’t so I am really hoping my daughter will like to play them once she gets a little older! (crossing fingers.) I loved Life, Monopoly, Scrabble and so many others. My family’s favorite is Cribbage!
My daughter is only three, so we don’t really play many board games as yet, although she is getting into shutes and ladders now. At the moment though her favorite games are Elefun, Cootie Bugs, Uno Moo and Go Fish. She loves Cootie Bugs and insists once the bugs are made on “buzzing” them all around the house – not so easy to do as they don’t stick together very well so body parts are constantly falling off!
I’m visiting from SITS – you have a great blog with a different style which I really like so I am glad I did.
Have a wonderful Monday
i love scattegories, yahtzee, flux (a card game), and taboo. my husband is not a fan of any of them, haha. he prefers chess, checkers, or risk.
I can totally relate. My husband and I blog together and he has to remind me that I can’t worry about what other people think or if they will be offended. We are pretty out there with opinions and oversharing. The first thing I think about it is what will the friends from HS think? I am trying to get past it. After all, the part of the attraction of blogging is the realness and ability to express.
Keep going!
~Kerry
There is a game called Sequence that we love to play! If playing with children, they should be a bit older – though, I think they have a kid’s version
When my son was smaller – before sports and clubs and all that – we had “Family Fun Night” many nights per week. Some days would include a board game (usually Candyland), other days we would do a floor puzzle (my son is 10 and I still can’t bare to get rid of the puzzles.) One thing we could always count on – much love and laughs.
I’d have to say we love games too. We play Monopoly Deal, Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit, Hand And Foot, and Scene It. Family game night is always a blast!
We love board games and card games as well!! My daughters are 4 & 6 and some of their favorites are Cootie, Bingo, and Monopoly Jr. They also enjoy a good game of The Wheels on the Bus and Hungry Hungry Hippos.