Best Board Games for Kids According to Board Game Blogger
Meeple Lady is a board game blogger, rulebook editor and podcaster. She shares with us her favorite board games for kids, which adults love to play too.
Board games teach children the rules, sportsmanship, and strategy. Children love games, and you, their parents, will most likely play many games with them. Why not try the ones that adults will love too? Here are some games to relieve boredom for any age child.
Age 3-6
Qwirkle
Quirkle is an abstract board game vaguely reminiscent of Scrabble, but instead of letters, you have blocks of wood containing six different shapes in six different colors. Players start with six blocks in their starting hand and take turns placing multiple blocks in a column or row of the same color or shape. The next player builds from this, for example, how you build words from each other in Scrabble. There are many replay opportunities in this game.
Outwitted!
Outfoxed is a co-op deduction game in which you try to figure out which fox is the thief. Players navigate the board to collect clues and learn deduction skills. Since it is a cooperative game, it is not too tedious for young children, and parents can work on the deduction puzzle as well.
Icy coolness
Ice Cool is a game with great agility in which penguins run around the school to be the first to collect all their fish. Players lead these wobbly cute penguins through halls and corridors, trying to avoid the hall watcher who will end the round. Note that children are great at tossing small pieces and you as an adult will probably lose this game.
Age 7-12
Patchwork
Patchwork is an adorable two-player game in which you have to assemble a patchwork quilt using Tetris-like elements. These chips are laid out in a circle around the board, and on your turn you only have access to the next three chips that you can buy and place on your board. The gameplay cannot go back and forth. Some chips move you further along the timeline, which allows your opponent to keep buying chips until he or she overtakes you.
My little braid
This is the family version of the popular strategy game Scythe. In My Little Scythe, players compete to be the first to win four trophies by increasing friendships or pies, completing quests, learning magic spells, delivering gems, and starting pie battles. The figurines are adorable versions of Scythe’s characters, and while the game is competitive, it still encourages players to help each other achieve some of these trophies.
Santorini
Santorin i is an affordable strategy game in which players move around and build Greek buildings with blue roofs on a board. If any of the players builds the third level, that player wins the game. The rules are easy to learn, but provide enough depth to keep each game interesting. In addition, the game has hero cards that give each player unique abilities for this game.
10 years and older
Forbidden sky
This is the latest in the Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert co-op series. In Forbidden Sky, you work as a team, collecting and connecting power sources to launch a rocket ship and descend from a floating platform. But elements such as lightning and wind get in the way of your work, and you must work together to ensure that no one is blown off the platform or electrocuted.
Codenames
In Codenames, when two teams are fighting each other, the Spymaster gives one-word clues to his teammates so that they can choose the correct clue. If teams choose the wrong piece of evidence, namely the cards laid out on the table, they may accidentally discover the piece of evidence for the opposing team, or worse, choose an assassin to end the game. The original Codenames are just words, but kid-friendly photo versions have come out – there’s a Marvel Edition and a Disney Family Edition, in addition to a two-player version called Codenames: Duet.
Give it up
Drop It fits easily into any age range because it is versatile. It’s so much fun even for people who don’t even play, but just watch. Players throw geometric shapes at this transparent plastic wall to earn victory points. In each game, there are different rules as to which pieces or colors should not touch, and how many points each piece earns, depending on the location. There is something so nice about dropping your chip and it will land exactly where you want it, even when the reality is that it will bounce several times and land where it shouldn’t be.