What to use this budget on?

[WhitePhantom]

Hi,

I work part-time with a group of 18-35 yr olds - low(ish) literacy, often early school leavers, doing courses to try to improve their prospects to get into education / work.

There's free / unstructured time in the afternoons for them to work on their projects, do activities, etc. Last year I brought a Scrabble board, deck of cards, chess board, and various other games with me, and we played these one afternoon a week and it went down really well.

I've been given a budget of a couple of hundred for the coming year for these afternoon activities, and just wondering if anyone would have suggestions as to what games I could use it for? Games to help improve spelling / maths / reasoning / strategy, and fun as well.

Thanks!

We play bananagrams after dinner most days. There’s a numbers version too, which is good but not as much fun as bananagrams.

Bananagrams is a good call. That and Scrabble are the only spelling ones I can think of that are any fun. Books of suduko and word searches might go down well. Ex Libris is a game where someone reads out a synopsis of a novel then all players have to write either the first or last line and then everyone guess which one is the real one. Not sure how successful it would be for people with low literacy though. Oh, storycubes might be a good option as well.

Otherwise probably all the classics. Get a games compendium that has lots of the strategy games like fox and hens, chinese chequers, backgammon, nine mens morris etc. That would give you the most choice for the least money. Otherwise Monopoly, Cluedo, Uno, Risk, Carcassone, The Game of Life, Labyrinth, Trivial Pursuit etc.

Monopoly Empire is a good game for making strategic decisions and learning how to take over the world. The gameplay is shorter than standard Monopoly too and feels more relatable because of the well-known brand names.

Apples to Apples

Bananagrams - fab game & fun

I would recommend backgammon, Othello, Dobble and Rummikub. All great games and teach a bit of strategy.

Boggle

Thanks everyone! I'd heard of some of them, but not most. I really appreciate the input! 😊