Playing games with your family is a great way to help stimulate more creative and innovative thinking in not only yourself but also your children. Family games are a great way to bring the family together, teach children about following rules, get them away from technology for a little bit, and to help promote creative thinking and problem solving, which is a very valuable asset to have. Let’s take a look at some fun family games that my family really enjoys playing!
This classic card game is great for kids as young as eight and as old as ninety-nine. This family game can be scaled up or down for difficulty depending on the players, but it’s a great way to recognize patterns, think strategically, and enhance attention skills. Players match cards with like numbers or colors and try to be the first person to run out of cards in their hand. There are also variations of this game on the market if the classic version isn’t speedy enough for your family.
This world-classic game is a great learning tool for pre-schoolers and up. This family game is great for teaching numbers, patterns, and strategy, since the aim of the game is to maximize the total number of possible points you can receive. Players in this game play dominoes based on color or the number of dots and must make plays in order to accumulate the most amount of points possible. When all of the dominoes are played the game is over and the player with the most points wins.
This family gaming classic is a great teacher of patience, flexibility, and persistence. Not to mention a great teacher of the value of a dollar and economics. This game is a great way to spend a night with the family, and also teach valuable lessons about saving money, budgeting, and general financial planning. Players invest in property and utilities as they move around the board and try to accumulate the most money without going bankrupt. I know some families that can’t play this game because they’re too competitive! Try to keep it fun and focused around some learning objectives and hopefully I will remind myself of that. Ha ha.
This family game is a great family game because it’s open-ended. No clear winner will be decided. However, the game involves creating stories based on how the special dice, that are covered in sketches, roll. The players roll a series of die with images on them and come up with a text-based story based on what they roll. This is a great game to encourage imagination and storytelling. The whole family can enjoy this interesting game and it’s great for the uber competitive family!
This family board game classic, is a great teacher and reinforcer of a number of valuable skills; mathematics, vocabulary, and spelling. As well as, strategy and critical problem-solving skills. Not only can the whole family have a blast playing this challenging word game, but it can also prove to be a valuable teaching tool. Players are given letters with point values and they must make words off of what the previous players in the game have already played on the board. Points are awarded based on the letters and spaces used. The trick here is a good defense!
These are just a few of the many wonderful board, card, and other games that your family can enjoy together and help foster and stimulate creative thinking and problem-solving. I’d love to hear from you what other family games you and your family play that foster innovative thinking!
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