board games? or bored games?

hi everyone

we have bought a few board games for the boys - some of which they love, and some which are huge wastes of money. so was wondering what your kids like in terms of games, which they hate, and what ages they are suitable

J and T LOVE Hullaballoo - even when they were too little to follow instructions, they danced and hopped about. now jake knows, taine kinda does, but jake bosses him about what to do

mousetrap - bought for $2 from a garage sale - i feel ripped off.

diego 123 - jake LOVES this game. it drives me insane as he insists on playing it heaps.

Dora ABC - jake is on ly now starting to get into this

Elefun - waste of money and chews through batteries - I keep finding the stupid butterflies places and sucking them up the vacuum.


how about your kids
(J is 4 (nearly 5 - gulp)and T is 3

We have a heap of them, some from when i was little, and some that i bought that have come back into shops that first came out when i was little, also a few i got when working as a nanny, will list the ones we have and what i think of them:

ELEFUN - same as liz, chews batteries, but good for short game play for littlies, however needs a bit of hand eye coordination for them to catch the butterflies.

SHREK OPERATION - kids love this one,

BRATZ MONOPOLY - paris got given this for her birthday a month ago, it's good to teach basic money etc, but is a looooong game, needs adult to play too

PLAYSKOOL HONEYBEE HOP - nice inside activity when they need to jump around, is not too bad on the batteries, even mummy has a go, has 2 speeds

TWISTER HOPSCOTCH - another good one for the older girls - we often pop it up the hallway on a rainy day and they play up there for quite a while, SUITS NEARLY ANY AGE though - big kids can play properly, littlies just like jumping about.

PLAYSKOOL TAG TAILS - THIS IS THE BEST!!! I love it, they put little belts on with tails on them and you try to run and catch each others tails, lots of fun, encourages movement, and can be played inside too. We love this game. ANY AGE

KERPLUNK - This one's pretty good and easy for most ages once they are past the putting stuf fin their mouth, not too much thinking and shortish game so keeps interest (does take a bit of adult set up to put in the sticks though)

BEDBUGS - mine from when I was little, good for kids to fine tune their fine motor skills, maybe 4+

CONNECT FOUR - good for older kids, otherwise gets trantrums cos they can only see the line they are making and forget they need to watch what you are doing too.

DORA BI-JINGO - like bingo, has the risk of being a long game, but we shorten it by flicking the spinners and everyone puts a token on the matching one, otherwise takes forever. good for kids that can sit for a little while. Kinda needs adult to play too

JENGA - 3+, Ayja loves playing this with us, lots of fun when it falls down, also good for playing dominos with afterwards!

DOGDICE - kinda like bingo, good for 4+, another fav

DISNEY, WHERE'S TINKERBELL - thought the girls would like it, very limited game play and they get bored, spint he base, try and guess which one tinkerbell is hiding under. Also the tinkerbell does not have an off button, you have to store it upside down otherwise you hear magical sounds all thru the night!

BUCKAROO - not too bad, short game, kids do get a bit titchy with it sometimes as it jumps pretty easily. not too much concentration needed though.

HUNGRY HIPPOS - a big favourite, good for kids who are past putting stuff in their mouth (it has marbles) but easy gameplay, lots of fun, nice a short, they can play by themselves.

GUESS WHO - girls are still getting the hang of this one - can't quite get them to understand that if the person says no they don't have glasses, that you put the ones down with glasses, not the ones without. ARGH!!!, Needs adult help, but i think there are younger kids versions that might be easier.

3D SNAKES AND LADDERS - good for older kids or with supervision, easy to play, risk of tantrums with snakes, lol.

SPLAT - kids LOVE this one, can get messy as uses playdough

HAIRY MCLAREY GAME - LOOOOONG game. ok to play but I get bored with it and so do the kids, too many rules etc

DIZZY DIZZY DINOSAUR - lots of fun, kids love the dino unless it takes out their family. pretty easy, most ages

OPEN THE BRIDGE - dunno if you can get this one now, very easy game. kids like it

DIAMOND HUNT - more of an adults game but Paris likes to hit precious jewels and travel around africa..

MY LITTLE PONY HIDE 'N' SEEK - great game, also can get spiderman version i think, can be a short or as long as you want, easy to play, basically a spot the difference game, probably could go from 2/3 yrs upwards

WINNIE THE POOH, FUN WITH COLOURS, - matching game, kinda like memory but you are trying to find all the same coloured pieces that go to your centre pieces colour. good for younger kids to learn colours, not too long.

DISNEY MATCHING CARD GAMES - from any age, well worth it nice and cheap, lots of varieties.

DORA SNAP CARDS - age old fav, easy peasy, kids like it.

CANDYLAND - pretty good game, easy to follow, very basic introduction to a normal kind of board game with a start and finish





Edited by mum2paris

OOOh, we have a thomas game too - about $14 from the warehouse - you "build" thomas as you flick around the spinner. Really cool. jake can play, Taine gets annoyed when he doesn't win.

We also have hungry hippos. Jake loved it, but doesn't play so much now.

Both my kids have loved Connect 4. Even Jackson plays it, he loves putting the counters down the slots.

Elefun - lasted 10 mins and never used it again.

Guess who - Janaya loved this and still does. Usually beats us!

Trouble - Janaya still finds it a bit confusing, her counters always end up in the wrong places.

Candyland - this was Janayas first game, great cause there's no die. Really easy for them to understand too.

Pickupstix - Another great game!

Mousetrap - My Dad bought this for Janaya, we never could quite figure out how to play it! Janaya sets it up and just watches the marble go, bit of a waste of money!

Jake loves snakes and ladders and trouble. Connect four is ok to, and I will get him onto juniour scrabble (vos I love scrabble) when hes a bit older. Oh and hes super good at dominoes.
Might get twister...

Don't underestimate the card game War, where you divide the deck in half and each flip over a card. The person with the higher number wins. (Or queen beats jack, etc.) If you both put down the same number or face card, you place three cards face down and turn over the fourth. The person with the higher fourth card wins all those cards. Especially good if your little ones are learning their number lines or learning about greater than, less than.

Ace beats everything.

I teach older-age primary children and l like to bump this game up into Multiplication War for older kids. You lay down two cards instead of one and the person with the higher product gets the cards. Matching product equals war!

Eventually one person (you can play w/ two or more people) will run out of cards; that's how you lose.

My students also love the supremely inane Slapjack. You divide the deck in half and everyone (two or more people) turn over a card at the same time. You keep turning over the cards in your hand onto the table until someone puts down a jack. The first person to slap the jack gets all the cards in the pile. Again, lose all your cards and you're out. I used to watch my students play this during indoor recess and thought there was no way it could interest them, but they loooooved it. Just watch out for the slapping of little hands!

We recently got mix and mash guess who - the kids think this this is a blast, it comes with 15 heads/15eyes/15 mouths and you pick one of each up without looking and place it on a stand so everyone else can see but you can't, then have turns asking questions to see if your head/eyes/mouth are animal, people or monster... masses of combinations and heaps of giggles. it comes with a big pad of sheets of paper to tick or cross off the different face parts.. I got crafty and laminated 4 of them so we could use white board markers and wipe clean.

Pictionary is great too - we found a family edition (in an orangey-yellow box) which comes with adult cards, as well as kids cards to make it easier for them. it also has different lengths of game play so you can shorten the gme for those with short attention spans. Only downfall is you need at least 4 players. we team up usually 1 adult and child in each team. great for kids who love to draw.. our girls love it, especially Ayja, who in 6 months has never been on a losing team yet, regardless of whether she's teamed with mum, dad or her sister.

This has lead on to me looking for the kids version of charades.. will let you know how that goes once we get it.