Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Games We Play

I have always loved playing board and card games. When I was growing up, my family frequently played games with each other and with my friends who came over. Back then our favorites were Guesstures, Trivial Pursuit, Scattegories, Taboo, and Rook. When I went off to college, I learned how to play spades, and I spent many hours with friends in the dorm playing cards. When Jimmy and I first met, we played many games of spades with our friends! I have such fond memories of playing games.

Now that I have children that are past the CandyLand age, I am enjoying playing games with them so much! The first game I teach my children after they graduate from CandyLand and Toy Story memory, is UNO. I can remember when we first taught Clay to play UNO--hilarious! Now Leah can play, and Sam will be able to before too long.

Each year for Christmas I make sure that at least some of my children receive a new game as one of their Christmas gifts. This year, we added 8 new games to our collection! Super! We have not even played all of them yet. Julie and Clay especially like playing games, so I try to play with them frequently. Julie and I enjoy chess (playing with The Chess Teacher--the moves each piece can play are printed on the pieces), Phase Ten, and Scrabble. Clay and I usually play Connect Four (hundreds and hundreds of games), checkers, and most recently, Monopoly--the electronic banking edition--very nice to not have to deal with all of that paper money! After supper a few nights each week, our family will play a couple of hands of UNO, or 30 minutes or so of one of our other games. Pictionary Junior is always a favorite---I CANNOT draw, so this game can be quite funny! I don't schedule Family Game Night or anything like that, just if the kitchen is cleaned at a reasonable time, and we don't have anywhere to go, we will play a game for a little while before baths and bed. Fun!

Here are some of our favorites!
















If you play a fun game that you think we might like to add to our collection, please leave me a comment.
Happy Game Playing!
I'm off to play Monopoly with Clay!

12 comments:

  1. Hey Roan! We LOVE to play games also. One new game that we added this year is Toot and Otto. It's played like Connect Four but one person has to spell TOOT and the other has to spell OTTO to win. Check it out. My 7 year old loves this game and can quite often beat her Mom! :) Have Fun!!!

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  2. One of my son's favorite games to play with me is Skip-Bo (a type of card game - uses special cards). Also one of my nieces and nephews favorites is Peanuts - one deck of cards per player.

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  3. Courtney and I also play lots of games. We too add a game to our Christmas list each year. Apples to Apples is a big hit at our house. A fun game for the older children is Rummikub.

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  4. We love board games here, too!
    Logan came home from playing Apples to Apples with some of his co-op friends and added it to his Christmas list. It was a big hit with all!
    Mary Charles got a little game called Blind Ignorance. Here's info from a game site:
    On your forehead you have a card that names you as a famous person, dead or alive. Everybody can see it and knows who you are - except you! You have to discover your mystery identity by interrogating the other players: Am I dead? Am I fat? Can I sing? Am I a bore? Personalities range from cartoon characters, to politicians, to movie stars. There's a limit to how many questions you can ask - so choose carefully. The more questions it takes, the lower the player's score.

    Contents:
    100 famous names on cards, 1 headband, instructions

    The goofy headband is part of the fun, although our menfolk refuse to wear it! We did develop our own rules. We either set a timer and the person gets to guess for three minutes. They get a point if they guess their identify. Or, we just play "for fun" letting the person guess until they get it or give up.

    God bless ~ Connie

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  5. I love Rummikub, Upwords, Boogle, and Blokus. My extended family loves to play dominoes and progressive rummy. We added two new games (I really limited myself!) for Christmas. A logic game for Jackson called Ducks in a Row and 10 Days in Africa because we are studying Africa this semester. Haven't looked at either of them yet!

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  6. I clicked over here from Boomama. It's nice to run into other homeschoolers.

    We love Blokus around here. It's everyone's all time favorite.

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  7. I was an only child and grew up playing LOTS of games with my parents. I've struggled with this because my kids are so diverse in age. My 3 yr old really wants to play with us, but there's not much he can play. I was surprised to learn he's quite good at the listening comprehension game I bought for my older kids. I love Scrabble and can't wait until my kids are a few years older and we can play that. I heard Apples to Apples is lots of fun and I didn't realize there was a junior version available. I'll have to look into that.

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  8. Christian got electronic Monopoly for Christmas too! He loves it, and could play for hours.

    Growing up, we were a BIG Yahtzee family...grandparents too! We still love that one!

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  9. We love games here too. Every Thursday is family night here which means kids choice for dinner, movie and games. Check out:
    http://www.educationallearninggames.com/

    Be careful, you'll want to buy everything! LOL

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  10. Oh, what fun! We're big game players here, as well! With the kids, we love Cranium, and now that I've seen your list, I'm going to be picking some more up. Mark & I LOVE Phase 10!!! I have a mental block with Rook and Spades, and I love dominoes, but I don't play with Mark b/c he knows what everyone has in their hand after the first couple of rounds, and usually wins!

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  11. Trouble and Sorry. Even the little guys can figure it out. Of course, only four can play, but it is still very fun!

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  12. We love games too. I think I told you that I remember playing Mastermind. We just found one at the thrift store and have been playing that some - me and Warren. Our other favorites are Sequence and Rummikub, both games that Paul and Debbie introduced us to. I'm going to now try and teach Will and Emma UNO!

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