10 Family Games for the whole family to enjoy
- Sophie Hibberd Posted On Nov 16, 2018 | Family Time
Playing games is important for children’s intellectual, social and emotional development. Through interactive hands-on games, children practise valuable abilities including critical thinking, planning, decision-making, and social emotional skills including interpersonal skills, taking turns, and fairness. We’ve rounded up 10 enjoyable educational games that are ideal for family game nights and keeping everyone entertained indoors.
- My First Game Tail Trails
- 1-2-3 Froggies
- The Sneaky, Snacky, Squirrel Colour Matching Game
- My First Game Critter's Closet
- Robot Face Race Attribute Game
- Code & Go Mouse Mania Board Game
- Money Bags A Coin Value Board Game
- T-Rex Rumble
- Blurt! Vocabulary Game
- Spindoodle
My First Game Tail Trails
Image: Learning Resources My First Game Tail Trails
Suitable for ages 2+
Playing is as easy as 1-2-3! My First Games have been designed specifically to develop important skills through game play. Encourage a variety of early childhood skills with this easy-to-play, 3-step hide & seek style game! Early learners use their observation skills to win the game! Encourage players to talk about what they’re doing and where they are hiding the cats to develop their vocabulary skills.
How to play:
- Select a player to be the hider and another to be the seeker.
- The hider rolls the dice to determine where to hide the cat. If you’re a seeker, take a good look, this could be your first clue!
- Do this for each of the three cats.
- When hiding the cats always have a tail on show as a hint to the seeker.
- Once all cats are hidden, the seeker can start searching.
1-2-3 Froggies™
Image: Learning Resources 1-2-3 Froggies™
Suitable for ages 3+
1-2-3 Froggies is the colour-matching, froggy-catching game that teaches preschoolers early counting, matching, colour and sorting skills.
How to play:
- Shuffle the lily pad cards and deal out four to each player. The cards should be placed face up on the table in front of them.
- Set all four frogs within easy reach of all players.
- The youngest player takes the first turn to roll the large, foam die.
- All players race to check their cards against the die. If one of their cards shows the same number of frogs as flies pictured on the die, they have a match!
- Grab the matching-coloured frog before any other player. If a player has more than one match, may take more than one frog.
- Any player who grabbed a frog turns that matching card over to the lilypad side.
- Repeat game play until one player has turned over all their cards, winning the game.
The Sneaky, Snacky, Squirrel™ Colour Matching Game
Image: Learning Resources The Sneaky, Snacky, Squirrel™ Colour Matching Game
Suitable for ages 3+
The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel is foraging for acorns and needs your help! The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game is the fun family strategy game that develops tactical thinking, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and pre-handwriting skills whileusing the Squirrel Squeezers.
How to play:
- Pass the squirrel spinner to the youngest player and let him or her spin.
- If the wheel stops on a colour, use the squirrel squeezer to grab a matching acorn and place it in the matching hole in your log. If that hole is already full, skip your turn.
- Once you’ve made your move, pass the squirrel squeezer to the player on your left – it’s their turn now.
- Be the first to fill up your log with acorns and you win the game. But be careful because the spinner could also land on The Sneaky Squirrel where the player gets to steal any coloured acorn from another player’s log, Sad Squirrel where the player forfeits their turn, or the Squirrel Storm that blows all the player’s acorns back into the tree.
My First Game Critter's Closet
Image: Learning Resources My First Game Critter's Closet
Suitable for ages 3+
Critter’s closet is a silly memory game of mixing and matching. Touch, feel, and talk while you play to develop key early childhood skills and readiness for sensory, literacy and language, and social development.
How to play:
- Place all accessories on the centre of a table or the floor.
- Each player selects an animal board to begin.
- Choose different accessories to dress up the animals in any outfit.
- Spin to determine action.
- Without peeking, another player will add, remove, or switch an accessory.
- Take a peek and identify how your animal has changed. Can you remember what your animal was wearing before the switch?
Robot Face Race™ Attribute Game
Image: Learning Resources Robot Face Race™ Attribute Game
Suitable for ages 4+
A crazy inventor has built dozens of robots, and he needs your help! Players race to find the correct robot head in this fast-paced game for the whole family. Robot Face Race reinforces colour recognition as players hunt out the correct robot head. There are 120 colour combinations – no two robots are alike.
How to play:
- Each player chooses a token colour and takes one token.
- The youngest player shakes the Robot randomiser first to display the colours (face, eyes, nose and mouth) of the robot you’re looking for.
- All players scan the game board for a robot face that matches what the Robot Randomiser displays.
- When a player spots the robot face, he or she puts the scoring token on top of it.
- If it’s correct, that player keeps the scoring token and grabs another one to prepare for the next round.
- If the player makes a mistake, play continues and he or she sits out of this round.
- Play continues and the player who found the matching robot face shakes the Robot Randomiser to start the next round.
- The first player to collect five scoring tokens is the winner!
Code & Go® Mouse Mania Board Game
Image: Learning Resources Code & Go Mouse Mania Board Game
Suitable for ages 5+
A learn-to-code board game! Code & Go Mouse Mania is a way to introduce coding and inspire primary children in STEM. This engaging game follows the same screen-free concept as our award-winning Code & Go Robot Mouse. It provides a basic introduction to early coding concepts such as step coding and logic and encourages problem solving skills, but most importantly, it’s fun to play!
How to play:
- Each player selects a mouse and places it in its coloured corner of the game board.
- Give each player a Super Mouse card.
- Players take turns rolling the die and selecting that number of coding cards.
- Encourage players to lay out their coding cards in a sequence to map their mouse’s path. The path should take them closer to the cheese!
- Players then move their mouse according to the steps in that sequence.
- If a mouse lands on some cheese, that player takes it.
- Players clear their cards after each sequence ready for their next go.
- Play continues until all cheese wedges have been collected.
- The player who collects the most cheese is the winner.
Enhance the game play with:
- Maze walls: roll these on the die and place a wall anywhere you want on the game board to block your opposition.
- Warp zone spots: instantly jump to another warp zone spot in one move if it will benefit you.
- Super mouse: can be used only once in a game. Use this card to jump over a maze wall.
Money Bags™ A Coin Value Board Game
Image: Learning Resources Money Bags™ A Coin Value Board Game
Suitable for ages 5+
Develop coin value recognition and early financial awareness with this engaging board game. Players earn money as they move around the board completing common household chores. Simple game play is ideal for developing a variety of basic money-related numeracy skills such as: coin value recognition, early financial awareness, counting money and money-themedequivalency skills.
How to play:
- Set up the game as per the instructions.
- Players roll the die. Whoever rolls the largest number goes first.
- The first player rolls the die and moves the corresponding number of spaces.
- The amount shown on the space indicates the amount of money “earned” for that turn.
- Next, the player spins the spinner to see which coins can be used to make up the amount earned. For example, if the spinner indicates “no two pence pieces” the player can use any coin except two pence pieces.
- The player then takes the coins from the bank equalling the amount he or she earned and places it in front of him or her.
- Play continues to the left.
- The player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner.
T-Rex Rumble™
Image: Learning Resources T-Rex Rumble™
Suitable for ages 7+
This hilarious dinosaur challenge game packed with prehistoric-inspired fun. Imagine trying to draw a picture or pick up an object using short T-Rex arms? That’s what you’ll be doing in this side-splitting game.
How to play:
Image: Learning Resources T-Rex Rumble™
- Players draw a challenge card and roll the die to find out which challenge they need to complete from these categories: Stacking, Drawing, Challenge and Charades.
- Using the T-Rex arms and claws, players have 30 seconds to complete their challenge - no hands allowed!
Blurt!® Vocabulary Game
Image: Learning Resources Blurt!® Vocabulary Game
Suitable for ages 7+
Blurt out the answer fast to win! Blurt® is a great vocabulary builder and a must for family games nights. Think fast! What word means “a partially dried grape?” Be the first to say “raisin” and you’re on your way to winning this rapid word recall game!
How to play:
- The reader rolls the die. The number rolled determines which clue on the card to read aloud and how many spaces on the gameboard the clue is worth.
- Players blurt out the word they think the clue defines. Players may blurt multiple times. There is no penalty for wrong answers.
- The first player or team to blurt correctly moves ahead on the game board the number of spaces rolled on the die.
- Pass the card box clockwise to the next player or team to become the new reader.
- The first player or team to return to the start after circling the game board wins the game. An exact roll of the die is not needed.
Spindoodle™
Image: Learning Resources Spindoodle™
Suitable for ages 8+
The new spin on sketching, Spindoodle is the hilarious spinning, drawing guessing game. Imagine trying to draw a doodle clue on a spinning canvas? It may sound easy but once the doodle board starts whirling, players will be laughing out! Feeling up for a challenge? The doodle canvas has three mind-whirling speeds!
How to play:
- Choose a card and roll the die to find out which clue you need to draw.
- Start the 30-second time and start sketching on the spinning doodle canvas.
- Players need to guess what the doodler is sketching.
Discover more fun educational games for the whole family on our website.
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Are you Big Board Game ready?
- Vocabulary
- Communication
- Problem solving
- Connecting prior knowledge
- Turn taking
- Critical thinking
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