Games, Games, Games!

The past half a year (or more?) we have been playing a lot of board games and card games with the kidlets. Bentley has liked games for a couple of years now, but the twins are only just getting the gaming fever. Between Christmas gifts and Bentley's birthday gifts, our game collection is quite large. (And we continue to add to it--if you've any recommendations, let us know!)

What are the toddlers' favorites? Jake still favors his vehicle memory tiles over any other game. It is best to play this game one on one with him, otherwise things can go awry if Bentley finds both fire truck tiles before Jake finds them. Nevertheless we do occasionally play with Bentley. Games are supposed to help teach good sportsmanship.


Jake's second favorite game is Hi Ho the Cherry-O. It's not my favorite game, but it's not all about me, so I play it with them.

Viva loves her Fancy Nancy game. I like it because it's quick. The first one to dress Nancy in all six of her fancy accessories wins. Yes! That's a game I can cheerfully play once a day. (Do not ask me to play it three or four times!)

Viva also likes her Disney Princess Old Maid game. All the children like this game. It features pairs of Disney Princesses (surprise! surprise!) and Ursula, the evil sea witch from the Little Mermaid, as the old maid. The children fight over Ursula. We've tried to explain to them that you LOSE when you have Ursula in your hand at the end of the game, but they have their own version of the game. In their version Ursula rules.

Bentley likes many different games. His favorite is the one he's been most recently introduced to. Some of his new games can be played with all three children, but many of them are too advanced for the twins, so they have to either hand out the cards (which they really like to do) or they partner with an adult.

Two weeks ago his favorite game was Sequence for Kids. Every adult in the house played a game or two with him almost daily. He liked it that much. Then Kara got Animal Bingo for her birthday and that became the preferred game. (Bingo was a big hit with all three children.) Earlier this week I purchased travel Trouble and that's now Bentley's new favorite. Opa and I have to each play with him at least one game every day, and great-grandma is hit up, too.


Bentley enjoys playing all games. He likes to win, of course, but he's usually a good sport about losing a game--as long as he gets a chance to win again soon.

What is my favorite game? I really like CooCoo the Rocking Clown. Viva, Jake, and Bentley don't like this game. I have to force them to play with me. I tell them that if I play their favorite game, they have to play mine once in a while. What is with their lack of like? It's a great game.


There are a few games that I will not play unless cornered. Eric Carle's ABC Game is one such. I loathe that game. It takes a long time to set up (you have to sort two sets of alphabet letters), it takes a long time to play even after I've modified the rules. For some reason Bentley loves this game. (Or does he love torturing adults?!)

All three children like to play Cranium Hullabaloo. There are sixteen or so small colored pads that you randomly place on the floor. The children race from pad to pad following directions given by the game console.


Jake and Bentley like to play Honey Bee Bop. It has a three foot long rod that rolls around the base in a circle. The idea is to jump over the rod every time it approaches you. The boys go wild racing around it. Viva has no interest in this game. (And she's the one who needs practice jumping. She's getting better, but she's no athlete yet.)


Bentley and I like to play Catch the Match. There are 15 cards that each have the same 15 objects on them, but the color schemes vary. The goal is find the one (and only one) matching pair of objects for a pair of cards. I've purchased a few more games by this company. Their games are educational, reasonably priced, and quick to play (a must for adult sanity).

All three toddlers enjoy Blink. It's a card game of speed. Whoever gets rid of their draw pile first wins. You do so by matching the card(s) in your hand to at least one characteristic of a card (color, shape, or count) on the discard piles. I was surprised how quickly both Jake and Viva learned the rules to the game. They aren't competitively fast, but that's mostly because of their small hands. They enjoy the game enough that I purchased a second deck so we could all play together. Kara and I are going to introduce Bentley to SET. Is he ready for it? We'll let you know.

We have a couple of different versions of I Spy games. The games themselves are all right. The card game is Go Fish! and the dice game is similar. The thing I don't like about the I Spy games and books are their lame photos. They are ugly. The doll they've photographed for the games looks like the Sister of Chuckie--creepy, ugly, you know? There are so many beautiful objects to photograph. I'm not sure a single one of their I Spy objects is aesthetically pleasing. What gives with that?

For her birthday (at her suggestion) I gave Kara a wooden Tic Tac Toe game. The first time I played with Bentley he whomped me. I used to be good at the game, but I was having an off day (as in my brain was shut off). Bentley totally enjoyed winning again and again. Since then I've recalled the simple rules for ending every Tic Tac Toe game in a draw, but Bentley doesn't like playing by those rules, so I have to be flexible. When playing games with toddlers it's not whether you win or lose, but how much fun they have.


A few months ago Kara purchased five (?) Hasbro games for $1 each. She bought "Don't Spill the Beans". The game was a dud with toddlers. It's for older children. Next we tried "Don't Break the Ice". That one is a big hit. Viva likes to pound away and take out huge chunks of the ice. You don't want to be the player right after her.

Last Monday night for Family Home Evening Matt and the children tried out a new game, Richard Scarry's Busytown. It's not cheap ($25), but came highly recommended. I think the crew enjoyed the game, but Kara wasn't too happy to find the game pieces missing and the timer broken in her new brand new game. Back to amazon.com it went, but since it's out of stock currently, we're waiting on a new copy. (Matt and the kids had fun substituting toy cars and plastic fruit for the missing game pieces.)

I scoured the photograph files to find photos of game playing and it was slim picking. I guess the photographer isn't much interested in such shots or most of the game playing goes on while he's at work?