Category: Board Games

Deal four cards facedown to each player, only peeking at the two cards on the ends. Draw a card each turn, hoping to replace the higher value cards with lower value cards, aiming for the lowest score. When you’re ready to score, call out “rat-a-tat-cat!” and the other players takes their final turn. Special cards allow for drawing two cards, swapping, or peeking at one card. Skills: Memory and basic addition with numbers 1-9. We play five rounds per game and then score.

This was our daughter’s first card game, and it remains a favorite. Discard number cards or sets of matching number cards to draw from the draw pile, hoping to find king cards to wake the sleeping queens. Each queen has a point value – the first player to 5 queens or 50 points wins. Watch out for knights and sleeping potion! Skills: number recognition and number matching

Collect colorful sushi and puddings to score the most points! From your starting hand, select a card to simultaneously reveal and place on the table in your player space. Pass remaining cards, choosing one again to play into your table space. Repeat until all cards have been passed and chosen. (This is called card drafting.) Try to collect matching sets based on sushi requirements and save the most puddings for an end-game bonus! Skills: matching, collecting to score the most points, addition up to about 20 each round

The game play is very similar to its big brother, Sushi Go, but instead of passing cards, players pass dice around on “trays.” Two new icons give special actions to players: menu dice allow for re-rolls, and chopsticks dice allow for swapping. Since purchasing Sushi Roll, we have been exclusively playing it over Sushi Go. We love rolling dice! Hot tip: when little hands have a difficult time with chunky dice, we use a cup for rolling! Skills: matching, collecting to score the most points, addition up to about 20 each round

Who stole the chicken pot pie? Moving around the town board to designated spaces, choose between revealing clues about the suspects or displaying additional suspect cards. Using the clues, eliminate the fox thieves one by one until you solve the mystery…before the fox gets back home! This game contains a really neat clue device our daughter loves, and the game’s difficulty can be slightly adjusted. Skills: deduction

Go Away Monster! holds a special place in my heart as our daughter’s introduction to boardgaming at age three. The concept is simple: each player receives a board that depicts a bedroom and passes around a bag to draw pieces from to complete the bedroom scene (bed, art, stuffed animal, etc.) Look out though, because the bag also contains monsters! Draw one of these and you must shout, “Go away monster!” and toss it into the box lid. Skills: touch, shape recognition

As raccoons pawing through the trash to collect items for scoring points, players vie to collect the most from the trash can before the final card has been grabbed from the deck. Roll dice to push-your-luck for actions, but don’t get too greedy and bust! Draw cards, stash cards for scoring, steal cards, and more as you hunt for pizza (mmm pie!), bananas (nanners) and other trashy treasures. This game requires some reading, but the few cards can be easy for non-readers to memorize. Skills: probability, simple addition

Collect adventurer cards in sets of matching colors, numbers, or in sequential order to earn dice to roll for capturing creatures in the forest. Skills: The six dice are numbered from 1-4, so practicing addition is fantastic in this game. Probability also factors in – how many dice do you need to try to roll for a particular sum?

Assume the role of a skilled adventurer as your group descends upon a sinking island to acquire four treasures before it floods. Beautiful artwork and cooperative game play (players work together to beat the game instead of competing against one another) make this game a fun family favorite. Note: Forbidden Desert is a more advanced game, and Forbidden Sky is one to pass on. Skills: strategic thinking, problem-solving, cooperation

One of our favorite “date night games,” Qwixx is a fun roll & write (roll dice and record something on your scoresheet) that involves all players on every turn. Roll six dice, using sums of the colored dice and sums of the white dice to cross off numbers in each colored row moving from left to right on the score sheet. The more numbers you cross off, the more points you score, but you can never go backwards to numbers you have skipped. Decisions are simple, but important, making this a weeknight game we love. Our daughter is a bit young for this one, but we will probably introduce it around 7 years.

In this colorful flip & write (like a roll & write but cards instead of dice!) reveal numbered/special ability cards to cross out subway stops on your dry-erase player board, trying to score the most points by completing routes. The most strategic on this list, I would recommend Metro X for older children and adults…sometimes this one burns my brain (in a good way!) Enjoy a good puzzle with your morning coffee? This also plays great solo! Skills: strategy, probability