Popular Kids Games
Popular Children’s Games
Popular kids games are a good idea to have around the house, whether you have kids of your own or they only visit a few times a year. When buying kids games, you’ll find you can purchase the newest childrens games or some of the old classics like Monopoly, Candyland, Life or Battleship.
You can also select childrens games that are a challenge and help them build skills, or you can choose games that involve pure luck and therefore help them build confidence when playing against adults. Either has a valid growth aspect to them, besides being fun.
- Monopoly – Has been a classic kids game for generations. Now in over 25 languages and hundreds of different themed editions, Monopoly teaches money skills, resource management and patience. For a slightly older kid set, Monopoly is still one of the best kids games out there.
- Life – Another classic game for kids that is fun and entertaining, but also gets kids thinking about life decisions. Your son or daughter gets to pretend to be a grown-up like daddy or mommy, but since Life isn’t skill-based, they have a chance to beat their parents at their own game.
- Zingo – Zingo is Bingo played with pictures instead of letter/number combinations. Each person gets a Zingo board with pictures laid out in a grid. When a picture is drawn randomly, players fill out their grid until they get a Zingo. Great for littler kids, but it’s essentially Bingo, so older kids and adults will also enjoy the action.
- Apples To Apples Kids Games – Based on the popular party game “Apples to Apples”, one person draws a card and then the other players take a card from their hand they believe most closely resembles or is synonymous to the card on the table. The judge who played the first card then decides which player played the best card, whether through a subjective or objective (ie. literal) choice. There is also an Apples to Apples Junior Edition.
- Chutes & Ladders – A game based entirely on luck that’s fast-paced. Chutes & Ladders teaches kids to count from 1 to 100. Roll the dice to move along the path to 100. Some spaces has ladders that will let you climb levels faster, while some have chutes that drop you down several levels. Volatility and luck combine for a challenge even kids can win.
- Pictionary – Similar to Charades, except you draw the clues. You have to be able to think quick in this game. While your drawing skills don’t have to be very advanced, you do have to convey ideas through your drawings. Lots of laughs in this one, because the drawings will be funny to look at much of the time.
- Connect Four – Connect Four helps kids visualize on a mathematical plane. The game requires you to place four chips in a row either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. A bit like tic-tac-toe, but played on an upright apparatus and with a few more twists and turns.
- Yahtzee – Yahtzee is a dice game where you try to roll up certain number combinations to increase your score. An entertaining blend of luck and planning, because each round, you have to put down a score. A decision one round can undermine or enhance your scores on later turns. Ultimately, though, Yahtzee is 95% about luck, so littler kids can feel like they have a good chance.
- Checkers – Checkers is chess for kids, even though adults also can enjoy the game for a lifetime. Checkers has few rules, but it can be challenging and require a little bit of strategy. You shouldn’t forget a great selection like this one.
- Risk – Great fun for the strategy minded older kids. Risk is a game of world conquest which encourages empire building and army building. These aren’t made too complicated, so kids can definitely play. For a little bit older age group, but 8 to 10 year olds can play Risk.
- Cadoo – A version of the popular Cranium boardgame for adults, with aspects of tic tac toe added in for good measure. I’ve found that kids enjoy Cranium games at a certain age pretty well, so a Cranium game specific to children is a great idea. Cadoo requires all the drawing and charades skills of Cranium.
- Sequence For Kids – This is a game for littler kids, ages 3 through 6. Once again, this game is a little like tic-tac-toe and a lot like Connect Four. You have four types of chips, but you must put four chips of the same color in a row. Draw cards to see whether you can add extra chips to the board or take away one of your opponents’. Simple to learn and easy to play.
- Scrabble – Scrabble and other word games encourage the development of word skills and can be a good teaching tool, if you don’t choose to use your greater age and (hopefully) vocabulary to beat them too badly at first. Scrabble builds a vocabulary and word skills, while entertaining at the same time.
- Camp – Trivia board game with a family on a camping trip as a theme. Fun for ages 4 and up with a retail price around $25. Requires basic math skills and some logical thinking.
- Battleship – Requires deductive reasoning to sink the opponent’s battleship by selecting the right spots to target on a grid. You place your battleship somewhere on a grid, then begin to select spots to target your opponent’s battleship, which is hidden behind a partition. Once you get a hit, you have to hone in on the target to finish the job.
- Candyland – Once again, a classic kids board game for the younger children in the house (3-6). Candyland is generally one of the first games most kids play. It’s easy, straightforward and mainly based on luck.
- Sorry – Game based on 98% luck and dice rolling, though there is a certain strategy to which Sorry pieces you get back home first. You move a selection of pieces around the board, moving the number of spaces you roll on the dice. The first one with all pieces back at the start wins.
- Trivial Pursuit – This one can be frustrating for kids if you choose an edition that’s too hard or with which they aren’t familiar. Select a childrens edition, pop culture edition or DVD edition to cater to their knowledge base or preferences.
- Green Eggs & Ham – Based on the childrens book by Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs & Ham is a picture-matching game. This means kids can test their memory skills, counting skills and decision-making ability while enjoying funny rhymes and Dr. Seuss character pictures.
- Trouble – Another game based mainly on luck, the genius of Trouble is their method of dice rolling: the Popper. When you push down on the Popper, it pops and the dice roll. It might be just as simple to roll the dice yourself, but kids love the popper dice and it’s hygenic, too.
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