1. Scrabble: A word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board. The tiles must form words which, in crossword fashion, flow left to right in rows or downwards in columns. The words must be defined in a standard dictionary.
2. Monopoly: Players move around the game board buying or trading properties, developing their properties with houses and hotels, and collecting rent from their opponents, the ultimate goal being to drive them into bankruptcy.
3. Pictionary: It’s played with teams with players trying to identify specific words from their teammates’ drawings. Each team moves a piece on a game board formed by a sequence of squares. Each square has a letter or shape, identifying the type of picture to be drawn on it. The objective is to be the first team to reach the last space on the board. To achieve this a player must guess the word or phrase being drawn by their partner, or if the player lands on an “all play” square, one player from each team attempts to illustrate the same concept simultaneously, with the two teams racing to guess first.
4. UNO: The deck consists of 108 cards, of which there are 25 of each color (red, green, blue, and yellow), each color having two of each rank except 0. The ranks in each colour are 0 to 9, “Skip”, “Draw Two” and “Reverse” the last three of these being classified as “action cards”. In addition, the deck contains four each of “Wild” and “Wild Draw Four” cards. To start a hand, seven cards are dealt out to each player, and the top card of the deck is flipped over and set aside to begin the discard pile. At last player left with zero card is the winner.
5. Treasure hunt: Think of some unusual spots around your house, or plant some treasures in rooms and on shelves (in an age-appropriate location, of course). Then make a list of objects, and have your child go on a treasure hunt. If they can’t yet read, draw a sketch of the hidden item.