Games - what are the hits/misses with your kids?

[Earlybird]

DD was given Monopoly Jr for her birthday last year (5), and to my surprise, she loves it and we play it all the time. She also enjoys Snakes & Ladders and Candyland.

What games/board games do your kids especially enjoy? Any that they don't like that are best avoided?

Thinking ahead to Christmas, and looking for ideas......

ker-plunk?!my mum banned that cos i used to wet myself laughing every time - am so pleased to be reminded, am going to buy it, with some tena lady now!

NEVER EVER.
Ever.
Ever.
Ever,
And I cannot stress this too much, succumb and buy Mousetrap. It is the devil's game.

After 40 mis you will be crying, the kids will be crying, you will have kicked the cat and taken up chain-smoking. And that is just putting the feckin' thing together.

You have been warned...

DS seems to wither with boredom the minute Snakes and Ladders comes out.

Likes Pop-up pirate, 'walk the plank' 'tummy ache' (but insists on compiling a horrible dinner rather than a nice one), and Rush Hour - but that is more of a 'solitaire' type game - very good for logical thinking.

There's a game he played with someone else - I can't remember what it's called, something like 'Who Am I?' - it's a bit like 20 qusetions - by asking questions you have to work out which charatcter your opponent has chosen. There are little stand-up plastic pics for each caracter. Logic and detective work type game. Anyone know what it is?

Blu - called Guess Who!

My 2 boys (age 6 and 9 ) love Junior Scrabble, battleships, Mastermind, Jn Monopoly, Tumbling Monkeys, UNO, Ludo and a board games from M and S called dinosaur race or summat.

Guess Who is great! Ds plays it a lot at after-school club.
Yahtzee is also popular in our house too.

Kids cluedo is great too,, DS (6) can play on equal terms with us.

Do not on pain of death buy Mousetrap or Rumble in the Jungle - a real PITA to put together, I totally refuse to do it.

another vote for Uno as good, absolutely any Orchard Toys game, never found a bad one, Guess Who, Triominos (3 sided dominoes with a scoring system)

If your child doen't like waiting to take a turn walk the plank is good, everyone moves at every shake of the dice, and it a fairly quick game to play.
Have recently taught DS to play draughts, and he is also learning chess at school, we hadn't started this at home as thought it a little complicated but he is really enjoying it.
Sorry is another old favourite that we play at PIL's, does take a while but if your children are good losers it is ok - second the tip about teams DD at 4 doesn't mind losing so much if she is with her mum!

Just love playing games with the children, particularly now some of t hem are actually games I enjoy!

UNO UNO UNO

We have been playing this in our family for about 15 years now and we love it. I must add it to the Christmas tradition thread as we all sit down to a game and a few arguments in the afternoon.

Stick to the original uno as well, none of these new fangled ways of playing it.

A good game just discovered (but for older kids and adults) is buccaneer. We bought the pirates of the caribean version from TRU but there is probably an unbranded version. Trading treasure, battling on the high seas and storing loot. Good fun!

For all those mentioning Monopoly Jnr - what's the difference between that and "normal" monopoly - how is it "easier"?

DS starting to get into Battleships, just started scrabble jnr, snakes & ladders, frustration, guess who?, cat in the hat game... in fact just about any game that mum & dad will sit down and play. Really enjoy our "games" time. Got a fab one last year with map of world and animals and you have to match the animal with the country - either visually or with clues depending on age of child.

flatmouse, junior monopoly is just simpler; the money is in smaller denominations (£1-£5); instead of streets in London you buy rides on a fairground; there are no houses to build; and it's much quicker. I think no-one would be out ever in big monopoly unless you swapped sets and built houses, concepts a bit beyond most 5yos. I do think it's good, tho 7yo DS1 is probably ready for the real version now (but not his younger siblings, y'see)

oh Pandag - you just mentioned my other worst buy in the history of the world, ever. Yes, do not buy Rumble in the jungle either - unless you genuinely haven't got anything better to do than spend half a day putting a crappy game together. And then the balls get lost...

Frustration
Boggle
Fot adults and older kids, Mindtrap is entertaining. Its a lateral thinking type, box of question cards type game, can be played in teams so can even out ages etc. Played well into the night many times.

"Whatever Next" - its a game where you have to do different things like pretending to be a slug/ putting your finger on your nose till next go etc. We played it with 4 adults and 5 kids aged 2-7 and evryone had fun.

WE love junior monopoly and junior cluedo. Am thinking of getting junior scrabble as dd big into board games at the mo. She is 4 and loves playing both - both are just long enough to sustain her interest.

Out of intersest though what is the differnce between junior scrabble and my first scrabble?

someone gave my 8 year old a great game called Lego Builder xtreme - not too competitive as they all end up with a small model they've built of lego - only prob is it takes a little while to set up the little pieces. worth it though!

I spotted last night that there is a Spiderman Special Ediction of Uno out.

Junior Pictionary is a good one which I had forgotton about until my 2 dragged it out last night and happily played with for 2 hours

(sshould add it's best for ages 6 plus IMO)