Other Kids' Games

This is Bugs in the Kitchen - this is quite cute and was a friend's thrifting find.  It is pretty random but teaches trying to get the hexbug to move the way you want with the right patterns.  

Minecraft card game - pretty quick and easy. It really is just resource collection with card sets. 

Old oldest ADORES the Star Wars Risk game and is quite good at it.

Pokemon

Well it happened....the Pokémon CCG entered our lives.  Andrew ADORES it. Like obsessively.  I told Ray that he got his mini gamer in Adam, and it seems he got his eventual Magic player in Andrew.  The hit of Christmas morning  - the Pokémon pack in his stocking. Seriously. 

 

As to the game - it isn't bad.  The deck building is set at 60 and is pretty standard.  The game also is just played to 6 KOs so that's much easier than the life points in Magic.  It really is Magic lite. 

They seller "trainer" decks and it worked really well for teaching the boys the game.

My First Journey (Ticket to Ride Junior)

I was suitably impressed with this one.  So Ticket to Ride isn't hard - my kids COULD do it. But it is too long. They don't have the attention span for a game that takes that long and some of the long routes are just too much for them to concentrate on (especially the 6 year old).  This came keeps all routes simple (less cities on the board) and speeds up the game.  It works really great. 

Andrew - no prompting - decided to do his own Dice Tower reviews!

We brought it on Christmas Eve and got Grandma and Great to play!

Adam Gaming

Adam started learning 40K this summer!

We all learned Minecraft card game

Adam got to go to the game store to play 40K

Star Wars Risk

So if you haven't played Star Wars Risk yet, you should. This isn't Risk...it is the Queen's Gambit, I guess (haven't played that one).  What I call it is Return in the Jedi in a box.  Our 8 year old LOVES LOVES LOVES it.

Teaching Adam 40K

Ray has begun to teach Adam (8) 40K.  Adam has his own orc army. 

 

Painting with Daddy!

Star Wars Sorry

We got the kids Star Wars Sorry for Christmas. This is actually a really nice improvement on regular Sorry with just a few little tweaks that make a big difference. Of course, the kids love the Star Wars theme. We actually replaced our regular Sorry with this one. 

King of New York and King of Tokyo

We love both of these games and as you can see, our kids play them.  King of Tokyo is very easy and both of kids (5 and 7) play it easily.  I wasn't sure on King of New York, which is much better as an adult, but our 7 year old took right to it.  He loved the new monsters and new map.  It is definitely a "better" game, but both are loads of fun and very easy to teach and learn. 

Kid Gaming

We encourage our kids to play and we don't just make them play "good" games, but we play all kinds!  My oldest loves King of Tokyo, but we also play things like Go Fish with our youngest. 

King of Tokyo

Go Fish

Operation - so by the way...this games seems MUCH easier than it was when I was a kid. I expected my kids to do a lot of "buzzing," They didn't. They are just either just better than I was (totally could be true) or the game has been made easier.....(also totally could be true)...anyone know?

Operation...oh at a museum Outside I saw a full size table version of this - pretty cool!

Board Games Make you Smarter?

This is a neat article about how board games make you smarter! I certainly think this is true of our kids!

Kid Games

We are already working on getting our kids into gaming.  Adam (our 6 year old) got My First Carcassonne for Christmas.  This is a simplified version of the big name Carcassonne. My son got it quickly and seemed to really enjoy it.  He also got Robot Turtles for Christmas.  He loved this as well.  Both are also decent enough that Ray and I don't mind playing them.