Family Games Night from Games Quest

Childhood games.  Winter holidays.  Times for famly and sharing.  Bring them all together and have a family games night!  Or pull them out when the kids think they are bored or don’t know what to do.  Keep them where the kids can easily access them to bring out when friends or family visit.  Take a technology holiday and get back to the basics and spend some time together this winter and beyond.

The winter holidays are a great time for spending time with family and playing a few games together.  Games Quest is the place to go for for your family entertainment.  Games Quest started out as a family business based in a living room.  It’s since expanded and now has an inventory of over 30,000 items!  The games you’ll find at Games Quest span from preschoolers through to those in retirement.  From trading cards, role play, puzzles, board games, card games, and science boxes, you’ll be spoilt for choice.  We did run into a small snag when their inventory system didn’t quite keep up with the Christmas rush, but we’re hoping that’s now been amended.

It took us a long time to plan our strategy for the items we wanted!  Do we choose one one fantastic game, or do we choose a couple of smaller ones?  We decided to go with the second option so that we’ll be able to have more choices with how to spend our cold winter days indoors.

We went for a mixed box of fun for the family.  The Yahtzee Classic I remember from my childhood, Boggle Slam is a card-version of the original Boggle, Pictionary Frame Game, and Really Gross Science to add some fun and learning to our days.  These games were received in exchange for our opinions; no other compensation was received.

We’ve chosen games that will teach skills to our children.  We won’t have to worry about what they are doing when we’re not in the same room.  Kallista is still learning her CVC (3 letter consonant-vowel-consonant) words, so she and Tristan play Boggle Slam using just 3 cards instead of 4, and she can see how words can be changed by simply changing a letter.

I think we’ll really have some fun with the Pictionary Frame Game when my parents visit later in the year!  It’s the same game, but there are now more ways to play it.  The part where one person uses their finger to draw on the board and the guessing team has to use the marker to follow and draw is great for coordination skills as well.  And I see the board being used for some math lessons, too.

Yahtzee Classic is a little old for the kids yet, but Phil and I are having fun with it, and the kids will grow into it soon enough.  In the meantime, the dice can be used for learning addition, subtraction, and multiplication.  Or the kids can just have fun rolling them out of the case.

Really Gross Science is the biggest hit so far!  What better way to teach children about the human body that with some relevant gross science?!  They’ve tried 2 of the experiments already.  They made the revoltoscope (endoscope) and had some fun looking at each other’s eyes, as well as other objects.

Tristan also learned about the power of a sneeze.  I think it’s safe to say they’re keen to learn some more!  What will be next?  Seeing what grows between your toes?

And I’d love to know what your favourite family game is and why.  Leave your suggestions in the comments box below.