Make Family Game Night Educational With These 8 Board Games
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If your kids are home for the rest of the school year and you're feeling less than confident about educating them yourself, consider playing board games with some kind of learning tied in to get you started. Educational board games are a great way to bond with your family while your kids practice skills and develop their knowledge.
Board games reinforce social skills like teamwork and taking turns. Moving the pieces promotes good hand-eye coordination, but that's not all. When young children count spaces, they are practicing what is called one-to-one correspondence, a key math skill. Many games also involve color recognition or memorizing a sequence of steps. When children have to form a mental strategy, they are developing the frontal lobes in their brain, which are used for reasoning.
In my home, we have a family game night once per week that we all look forward to. Now that our state has a shelter-in-place order, we have been playing board games a few times per week to help us pass the time indoors. The current crisis has added a pretty significant amount of stress to our lives, and our daughter picks up on that. Sitting together at the table to play a game reduces anxiety for us all. I choose educational board games so that while we're having fun interacting together, we are also reinforcing learning for our daughter.
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Hedbanz
The game of Hedbanz ($19) is guaranteed to have everyone smiling and probably laughing while working on kids' critical-thinking skills. Children 6 and up craft questions that lead them to find out what the picture on their headband shows. Hedbanz also promotes categorical thinking and improves vocabulary.
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Sequence For Kids
Sequence For Kids ($15, originally $17) is a fun way for kids as young as 3 to start working on strategic thinking, and it's based on the more complicated strategy game Sequence. In this version specially designed for children, fewer spaces make the game more accessible, and the animal cards and wild cards (a unicorn and a dragon, of course) make it more fun.
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Counting Campers
Counting is actually a complex mathematical skill. Memorizing the numbers is not all kids need to know; they need to conceptually understand that each number corresponds to one more of something. Counting Campers ($21) helps kids 4 and up practice counting in a tangible way that builds their math readiness.
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Scrabble Junior
Scrabble Junior ($15) is a guided version of the classic Scrabble game, perfect for kids from ages 5 to 10. Players match their tiles to form words already written on the board, sharpening their reading skills as well as their ability to make and execute a plan. When children are ready for the more challenging Scrabble game, simply flip the board over and there it is.
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Match a Pair of Birds
Refine memory skills with Match a Pair of Birds ($17), as children 3 and up try to make a match based on where they last saw each bird. The lifelike images also teach children about the many types of species of birds and how males and females of each species differ.
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Proof! The Fast Paced Game of Mental Math Magic
Challenge children ages 9 and up to quickly compute mental math with Proof! The Fast Paced Game of Mental Math Magic ($18). This game requires focus, and the competitive edge makes it even more fun.
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Rummikub
Rummikub ($19) is designed for players 6 and up, and it's both educational and extremely addicting! Players form sets based on color or number, and strategical thinking is required to decide which sets to form.
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Shut the Box
A game that requires math facts and strategy, Shut the Box ($35) will probably work parents' brains as well as kids'. Players form equivalent combinations as they try to be the first to close all their pegs and "shut the box."
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