Have Fun with Your Kids! A Roundup of Board Games Recommended for Parents and Children
In recent years, board games have been gaining attention among adults as well, and of course there are plenty designed for children, too.
They range from educational games suitable for kids around age three to strategic games aimed at elementary schoolers and up.
In this article, we’ll introduce a selection of games that kids can enjoy, as well as games that adults can have fun playing together with them!
If you’re a parent looking for board games to play with your children, use this as a guide to find games they’re likely to enjoy.
- A game that the whole family can enjoy playing together
- Recommended card game. Easy! Fun! Adults get hooked too!
- [For Kids] Popular party games. Fun games that get everyone excited
- [Easy] A roundup of recommended card games that kids can enjoy too
- [Easy] Recommended Playing Card Games Kids Can Enjoy Too
- Indoor games for parents and children: fun activities that use the body and the mind
- [At-Home Time] A roundup of board games you can play online
- [Play Right Away!] Exciting Recreation Games Recommended for Elementary School Students
- [List] A roundup of games and recreational activities kids love
- Recommended for upper elementary grades! Exciting indoor recreation and games
- [Children’s Club] Easy and fun indoor games. Exciting party games
- [For Kids] Indoor Fun! Large-Group Recreational Activities and Games
- Fun for kids and adults alike! A collection of DIY beanbag (otedama) ideas
Fun for the whole family! A roundup of recommended board games for parents and kids (1–10)
Katamino
First off, the packaging label that says “for ages 3 to 99” really catches the eye.
This game involves combining blocks of various shapes to fill a frame.
By moving the slider, you can change the size of the frame, allowing for countless combinations and ensuring you won’t get bored compared to similar puzzle games.
The difficulty also changes depending on whether you use the small blocks or not, so it truly offers fun for a wide range of ages, from young children to adults.
It can also be played by two people.
Crash Ice Game
This is a game where you break hexagonal plastic pieces that look like ice with a hammer.
You have to chip away at the ice carefully so that the penguin on top doesn’t fall.
Spin the roulette and break as many ice pieces as the number it lands on.
There are also events like skip a turn and reverse, which keep the game exciting.
It’s like a stick-pulling sand mound game with a bit less randomness.
How you break and which hexagonal pieces you leave will likely have a big impact on who wins.
Gobblet Gobblers
Gobblet Gobblers is a board game that’s like a 3×3 tic-tac-toe turned into a 3D version where players place O’s and X’s.
The basic rules are the same as tic-tac-toe: you win by claiming any one row.
However, in this game the pieces, called Gobblers, come in three sizes—large, medium, and small—so a larger piece can cover a smaller one, even flipping a spot you claimed into your opponent’s.
You place pieces while keeping an eye on how many pieces of each size both you and your opponent still have.
As your supply runs low, you’ll need to reuse pieces by lifting ones that were covering others, which can dramatically change the board state! It takes more thinking than playing on paper, but it’s a tic-tac-toe-style game that kids can enjoy too.
Mancala: Kalah
Keep moving colorful stones in Mancala Kalah.
The rules are simple: the winner is whoever clears all the stones from their own side! At the start, place four stones in each of the six pockets on both your side and your opponent’s.
On your turn, take all the stones from one pocket and drop them one by one into the pockets counterclockwise.
If you finish placing stones in either your own or your opponent’s regular pocket, it becomes the opponent’s turn.
If you finish in the slightly larger pocket called the “goal,” you get another turn.
Your goal is the larger pocket on your left, and you keep gathering stones toward it.
It may look tricky at first, but kids enjoy handling the cute stones, and the strategic thinking makes it great for learning, too!
Ride a crocodile?
“Ride the Crocodile?” is especially recommended for animal-loving kids: you stack various animals on top of a crocodile.
The rules are simple—roll the die and place that many of your animals onto the crocodile.
However, the die has faces other than numbers.
If you roll the crocodile, you don’t place animals on top; instead, you attach them to the crocodile to widen the base.
If you roll a hand, you pass your pieces to another player and have them place them for you.
If you roll a speech bubble, another player chooses which of your pieces you must place.
If the stack collapses while building, you take two of the fallen pieces as your own.
The first player to get rid of all their pieces wins!