Why Play Board Games?
Did you know that board games can help with brain and character development? “Just by virtue of playing them, board games can teach important social skills, such as communicating verbally, sharing, waiting, taking turns, and enjoying interaction with others. Board games can foster the ability to focus, and lengthen your child’s attention span by encouraging the completion of an exciting, enjoyable game.” – Scholastic.com Board
Games can also “help hone a person’s logical-mathematical intelligence – brilliance that is often found in scientists, mathematicians and investigators; and offer numerous benefits when it comes to the development of linguistic intelligence.” – ExaminedExistence.com. 
Get Your Family Game On
My favorite benefit of playing board games with family: Family Time. Board games are a wonderful way to spend time together as a family and provide members with memories of interactive play. These games make great gifts for all kinds of occasions. From grandparents to kids, families can create lasting memories and loads of laughter by spending quality time playing games together. You can bring generations together and create a sense of nostalgia in your home with this list of 11 Traditional Games from Hasbro Gaming that families will love.
11 Board Games Families will Love
This list includes a wonderful variety of games that appeal to all ages for hours of fun and interactive play. For our family, I love this list because it includes games for gross motor skills (Twister) and fine motor skills (Jenga); as well as games that are perfect for introducing strategy (Battleship) and money management skills (Monopoly). Children (and adults) learn through play, and board games are a wonderful way to spend time with your kids and teach them important life skills at the same time. 
Game #1: Twister
This games leads to loads of laughter as my kids try to navigate the brightly colored circles with their hands and feet. Twister is a classic game that has introduced two new moves – 1. Spinner’s Choice and 2. Air – where the player has to place the body part in the air onto the mat. You can order TWISTER on Amazon. TWISTER Players spin the dial and call out the moves. Players must move that body part to that color spot as quickly as possible. If a player’s knee or elbow lands on the mat, they’re out. The last player standing WINS! Recommended: Ages 6+ 
Game #2: OPERATION
Got a frog in your throat? You need an “OPERATION“. 🙂 
In this game, player’s play “doctor” and try to help the patient by removing the things that are making the patient sick with a pair of tweezers. But watch out – if the tweezers hit the metal edges near the “ailments” being removed, an alarm goes off and the player’s turn is over. This game elicits squeals from my kids as they try to wiggle their way in and out of the tight spaces with the tweezers to “heal” the patient. I love that this game introduces kids to some of the things doctors do to help us while also teaching fine motor skills. Brilliant game. The player who collects the most “ailments” wins! Recommended: Ages 4+
Order OPERATION here on Amazon.
Game #3: Hungry Hippos
A fast moving and exciting game, Hungry Hippos is definitely on my boys’ list of favorites. Players release marbles onto the game base and then use their controllers to make the Hippos chomp the marbles. The player whose hippo chomps the most marbles wins! In case you’re wondering (we ran some testing), standard size marbles are too big for this game. Recommended: Ages 4+
Click here to get Hungry Hippos on Amazon. 🙂
Game #4: Connect 4
I love how this game gets my kids thinking about patterns and strategy. My boys are still learning how to “connect 4” but they’ll load and unload the discs in this game for hours. In Connect 4 players take turns dropping colored discs into a grid. The first player to connect four discs either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally wins. Recommended: Ages 6+ 
Game #5: Jenga
I love, love, love this game. It’s so incredibly simple and yet, mesmerizing for my kids. Jenga comes with a stacking sleeve to help you start the game off with perfectly aligned and stacked blocks. To play the game, players have to remove a block from the stack and stack it on top making the tower higher and higher. A quick video showing how I taught the boys to remove and stack the Jenga blocks.
Since they’re so young, we play Jenga with both hands. 🙂 
It’s a game of balance, and players have to carefully select, pull, and stack the blocks. If the tower crashes, that player is out. I love that this game is so simple – it actually inspires independent play. Even my almost 4-year-old loved this game. Recommended: Ages 6+ 
Game #6: Trouble
I must admit, the mechanism that “pops” the dice to roll it in the center of the game is pretty cool. Plus I love the fact that we’ll never lose the dice on this board game. The rules are straightforward and relatively simple. Players push down on the Pop-O-Matric bubble to roll the dice and move pegs around the board. 
Players can send other players’ pegs back home when they land on the same space. The first player to get all four pegs safely home wins the game. Recommended: Ages 5+ 
Game #7: Battleship
Battleship is a wonderful classic game for kids. I especially like that this game got my boys checking the grid to call out alphabet letter and number combinations. Even my nearly four-year old enjoyed showing me how he counted every space and read the alphabet letter. My only challenge with this game was keeping my five year-old from moving his ships in the middle of play. #MommyLife #TeachingSportsmanship 
In Battleship, players position ships strategically on a grid and target an opponent’s ships. Players take turns calling out letter and number combinations until they “hit” the opponent’s ships. Once one player has sunk all of his or her opponent’s ships they WIN! It’s a perfect two person game and encourages strategy and critical thinking. Recommended: Ages 7+ 
Game #8: Sorry
This game is great for teaching strategy and sportsmanship. To win, players have to be the first to get all of their pawns around the board. If a player lands on a space that’s already occupied by an opponent’s pawn, they can bump that pawn back to the starting space. Two pawns of the same color may never occupy the same space and pawns must be brought into Home by exact count. Pawns can also move to a “safety zone” to prevent being bumped by other players’ pawns. Recommended: Ages 6+ 
Game #9: The Game of Life
If you have pre-teens or teens in your household – this is the perfect game for your family. Each player starts with a car and a peg representing him or her in the vehicle. Players have to choose a path before they start – if they chose college they have to pay 100K in tuition fees immediately. If they choose a career, they get paid sooner but they may not make as much in the long run. To play, each player spins the wheel and moves forward that number of spaces. If you pass over or land on payday during a turn you get to collect your salary. 
All players will follow the game path for adventure, family, and unexpected surprises. At the end of the game path everyone retires. The player who retires as the wealthiest player WINS. Now, in real life, wealth may not be the only factor in determining “winning” at life but this game definitely opens up opportunities to discuss how one wants to play “the game of life.” Recommended: Ages 8+ 
Game #10: Scrabble
Scrabble is the game where every letter counts. Letter tiles have values which add up to calculate players’ scores. This is one of the games that helps develop “linguistic intelligence.” Players start off by choosing 7 tiles from a black bag and placing them on their tile rack. The player with the letter closest to the letter “a” or a blank tile goes first and places a word on the game board. The first word must be at least two letters long and must cover the center square.
You can get SCRABBLE on Amazon by clicking the blue link. 
From there, players take turns placing letters at right angles to a word already on the board in a crossword style fashion. Players earn point values based upon the post values for each letter and can earn double or triple points by assembling their word over double and triple letter score spaces. A scorekeeper keeps score as the players play. I highly recommend having a dictionary nearby if you play this game! The player with the highest final score wins. Recommended: Ages 8+
Game #11: MONOPOLY
In MONOPOLY every player starts out with a huge wad of money and has to move around the board buying as many properties (streets, railroads, and utilities) as possible. Most spaces on the board represent a “property.” The more property a player owns, the more money they can charge for rent. Players can “upgrade” properties by adding houses (green buildings) or hotels (red buildings) which demand more rent from other players. If you’re the last player left with any money when all the other players have gone bankrupt you win! To keep the game short and sweet, always auction property when someone does’t want buy the property they’ve landed on. Also, never loan money to other players, or make deals not to charge each other for rent. 
Some house rules that many players of MONOPOLY love:
- Frozen Assets – When in Jail, you cannot collect any rent.
- Dash for Cash – If you land on “GO” – double your salary!
- Free Parking, Fast Cash – If you land on FREE parking take all the monies collected in taxes and fees (this will lengthen your game).
Recommended: Ages 8+ 
Our family looks forward to many hours of spirited play with these 11 Board Games Families will Love. I hope this list inspires many hours of family fun and play for HappyandBlessedHome.com readers. 
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What’s your favorite way to play?
Do you have a family fun game or activity you enjoy with your family? What’s your favorite board game? Check out the awesome board games at Hasbro.com online and let me know which one your family loves the most. Share your favorite games and tips with other HappyandBlessedHome.com readers.
If you’ve written a blog post about a fun way to spend time with others feel free to leave a link in the comments to your post with your tips. I’m always looking for new leads and I love hearing from my readers. Here’s to family fun!
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This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Hasbro Gaming.
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