The games kids play

Nicole blogged about playing snakes and ladders (frustratingly too punitive snakes) and slamwich (a hit!) with her kids. Might need to get that one.

Sparky is at the age where games start being really fun, but Scout is still at the throw the pieces around the room and start a bunfight with your brother stage. I'm hoping next year we might start being able to get them to play them together.

We recently bought Boggle for Bhaer and myself (with an eye to the future) and so Sparky got out his Children's Boggle. There is a multi player version of this game, but so far we have only used the single player version. Sparky has been reading for a long time but his writing has really only just started taking off - this game is great for kids at that stage.

Another couple of games we have for Sparky that have been used only rarely so far - due to Scout - are Happy Families and The Shopping List game (which is one of the many memory games out there). He enjoys both of these. I grew up playing with my Dad's charming old happy families pack from the 50s (outdated socially though as all the dads were the workers) but sadly no one knows where it is.

We also have children's scrabble, which hasn't really caught on with him yet - I think its easy version is now too easy and the hard version still too hard.

Other games that I remember fondly from childhood and I'm keen to introduce the kids to, include:

Uno

Chinese Checkers (Lovely old set of Dad's -missing??)

Battleships (forget the plastic versions - we always just played with paper)

Careers (I enjoyed this much more than Monopoly, I think because you could strive for happiness as well as money. Again used Dad's and missing)

Connect 4

Guess who (my brother and I loved this and never owned it)

I also loved a game which had no winners and was all about learning about each other and cooperating but my brother hated it. I would have to do a deal with him where I played a game of monopoly and he played one of my game - can't remember what it was called now.

As a teenager, I would add Trivial pursuit and Pictionary and Cheat (note that I have linked here to the wikipedia article which gives an alternative and more scatalogical title to the game...).

Which games do your children enjoy? and which do you remember fondly from your own childhood?

*I got the image from the Games Empire website, which is where we bought Boggle - a great games and lego shop online and in Marsfield with competitive prices.