Tristan and I love playing board and card games with our kids, but games like Candyland and Hungry Hungry Hippo became painful to play over and over. We just got so bored! We thought that their had to be some better games out there that the whole family could enjoy together.

Thanks to the new surge of games being designed and made for all skill levels and varying difficulties of games, there are many new options for family friendly games. Even the little ones! Every time we go into a certain local toy store, I see and want to take several new games home with me! I love how board and card games teach kids to take turns, work together, be good sports when they win or lose, and can even teach strategy and planning.

There are so many more games than ‘roll the dice and count the spaces’ types of games I was used to as a kid. So that said, I wanted to share a few simple board games that our family loves to play together and neither kid nor parent is bored!

And note, these games are suited to younger family members playing along, as you don’t need to be able to read words to play. 

5 Minute Dungeon

Our kids really like this one because they get to pick their character (such as a Ninja, Wizard or Valkyrie) that have different skills, and everyone is working together to escape the dungeon. Different cards have different symbols and you all cooperate together to place down the right cards. The hard (and fun) part is that you must do it all in 5 minutes (there is a timer App designed for the game that has different countdown music and announcers). I like how you can pull this game out for literally 10 minutes and play. You don’t need to dedicate an hour to the game. A lot of fun!

I recommend this for ages 5 and up.  If you don’t use the timer, a 3 or 4-year-old would understand the game, otherwise I think it is a bit too chaotic for them.

Animal upon Animal

This is a wooden animal stacking game where you take turns rolling a dice and placing animals on top of each other in the middle of the table. But don’t knock them over! Very simple, but surprisingly fun for even adults to play!

I would recommend this for ages 2 or 3 and up.

Dutch Blitz

This is not a new game, but it is a classic! The point of the game is to construct piles of coloured cards in numerical order and try to be the first to use up all the cards in your Blitz’ pile. We often partner up in this game with 2 kids to a team. It can get crazy, and fast and it is a lot of fun.

I would recommend this for ages 4 and up, or whenever a child knows their colours and numbers to 10.

Settlers of Catan

This is a pretty well-known game and remember playing when I was a young teen, but only realized recently that would be a fun game for the kids too! It is a game where you build roads and cities by collecting and using resource cards (wood, brick, ore, sheep, wheat). The kids love all the little wooden pieces, how they can choose where to place roads and town and can strategize their next move or what they will ‘save up’ for and build next. This game takes a hour or more to complete usually.  I would recommend this for ages 5 and up.

What are your favorite family board or card games? I would love to hear about them!