Best Family Home Evening Games

Family game night is a time when families get together to spend some quality time together and play games. Family game night was an important part of my childhood. We loved to play board games and cards together. As my husband and I began our family, we knew that this was a tradition that we wanted to continue. Technology has created some different types of games that families can play, including Wii games, but this guide will focus on the traditional card and board games. Although the video style games have value and teach great skills such as strategy, there is something about those traditional games that brings a family together.

Depending on the age of your children, there are many great games to play. We are just beginning to leave the early board games such as Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. Although these are still great favorites for my kids, we have recently embarked on the big kid games.

When choosing games to play as a family, use the age guide as a reference only. Remember that you know your children best and will be able to know if they are able to play a game that has a higher age recommendation. For example, this Christmas Uno joined our home. Although the age guidelines say 7+, my 4 and 5 year olds were able to play this game and understand it quite well. We eased them into the game by playing several hands with the cards showing and talked them through the steps. Before we knew it, they were easily beating us!

Here are some guidelines for choosing games for your family:

• Be sure that the game will hold the interest of all members of the family.
• Check to see that the game will not last too long if there are younger members of the family playing.
• Select games that have a learning element incorporated. Counting, categorizing, spelling, building vocabulary, and developing strategies are all great learning opportunities.
• Choose games that are FUN! After all, you want this to be an experience that the whole family wants to repeat each week.

The table to the right will help you to begin to make quality choices in games for you and your family.

There are so many great reasons to have a weekly family game night.

1. Families get to spend time together. This is so important in our faced paced world.
2. Educational growth. There is so much learning built into these games that most of the time children are building logic and reasoning skills and don't even realize it!
3. Competition. There is a need for children to develop and sense of competition. Competition is a healthy trait for kids to learn. Playing games within the family setting allows children to learn how to be gracious competitors as well as gracious winners and losers. I personally think that children should learn that everyone will not win and that is ok. It is all part of playing a game.

If you have some favorite games that you enjoy or have enjoyed playing with your family, please feel free to share them below.