Best Games (indoor) For Kids?

[totoro]

I am thinking board games for 5-8 yo's.

We have been hovering around 100 for over a month now and it starts getting getting hard to think of things to do indoors.
We don't have Monopoly or Life yet.
We have Zootopia from Cranium that they love and another one from Cranium that they jump around on the floor and and have to stop when the music stop on a certain marker.


I had rocks and twigs as a kid.
But seriously we played with our life game and monopoly with missing pieces and until they were so destroyed... we moved those from apt to apt...


We have a bunch of old younger ones, I think the girls are ready for some older ones.

I can only do so many art projects with them.

K has been pretty Hypo/Manic lately and I need to help her keep her mind distracted. She is on the 5-15 minutes of being occupied!

 

[gcvmom]

Have you tried MY personal favorite? Mommy's "it" and we play Hide-and-Go-Seek, without the Seek part...

 

[Andy]

When they don't want to do gcvmom's hide and seek (I would try that first) how about:

Do they like puzzles? 60 - 100 pieces? Might be able to get them at a dollar store.

Kids like Trouble and Guess Who

Do you have legos or duplos for them to build with?

Try walking through a dollar store to get some inexpensive ideas.

I am going to get a large poster board and a bag of plastic zoo animals and have difficult child and his friend design a zoo. That should keep them busy for a while.

There is a thread on the watercooler a few weeks ago that listed activity ideas.

Put a bed sheet over a table and ask them to set up their stuffed animals under the table in the tent. They can then have tea partys or read to their animals. Give them flashlights since it may be dark under there and play soft music in the room. Maybe if they put enough pillows and blankets under there they may take a nap?

 

[AnnieO]

Apples to Apples - they have a kids' version. Also if you teach them to play Rummy or Uno you may never have to do anything again for entertainment. It's something to see when a 14-y/o goth girl and a 10-y/o jock are goofing off with a deck of cards for HOURS.

 

[KTMom91]

I went to the grocery store, and I got something that begins with...then the girls take turns guessing. Letter C could be cheese, candy, cookies...the one who gets it right gets to start the next round. Also great for car trips.

Crazy Eights, Yahtzee, Scrabble Jr.

Categories. Take a sheet of paper, make five columns/rows (or less if you prefer). Choose letters (going down) and categories (across) and fill in the blanks. For example, if your letters were I, S, B and your categories were food, TV shows, and animals, in your blanks you could have ice cream, iCarly, and inchworm; spaghetti, Superman, and snake; burgers, Brady Bunch, and bunny.

 

[gcvmom]

War is another easy card game. Goes on for HOOOOOUUUUUURRRRS.

 

[house of cards]

Twister...mom gets to spin, even I can handle that. Although if momplays, they enjoyit more.

 

[Jena]

ok i have nothing to add to this lol.

My personal favorite is Operation.......and twister

 

[DammitJanet]

Puzzles are great...cheap as all get out at Big lots.

Bath tub crayons and shower foam.

Card games.

Paint a low wall in their room with blackboard chalk and let them have at it. Or alternatively if you cant do that because of renting...buy enough sheetrock to cover a low wall along one side of the wall...probably a 4 x 8 and paint it. Just tack it up so it doesnt fall over.

Paper dolls! Let them make clothes out of construction paper.

 

[eekysign]

At that age, my friends and I were very much into a "hide the marble" game. One person would hide marbles, like easter eggs, all over the house, then the other person(people) would have to go find them all. Stupid and silly and a BLAST.

Being younger kids, we never......EVER.....found them all, 'cause the hider would forget what they had hidden. You would not BELIEVE the number of marbles my parents found when we moved next.

It's a great game. Kids love hunts.

 

[Abbey]

There's always 'who can find the front door and go out' game.

Hide the marble is great.

Eye spy.

Dictionary challenge (yes, I was a nerd)

Choose a band they like...try to dress in character and learn a song.

I wouldn't recommend tag indoors. I have a nice 1inch scar on my left wrist attempting this game while mom was out. I put my hand through a window while rounding a corner in the dining room. I'll never forget the look on my neighbor's face as I came knocking on his door with a huge shard of glass imbedded in my wrist right at the main vein. Blood was literally pumping out with each heart beat. Enter ER visit.

Abbey

 

[Andy]

Check with mstang on how to order a Boards By Lords of Leisure mini cornhole (aka beanbag) board toss game.

 

[totoro]

Yeah those were some good ideas, apples to apples I will have to look at and uno I used to love.
War! I forgot about that!!!

Scrabble jr!!!
great!!
I know we had a post for summer things. I was thinking specifically "Board" games for kids.

I pulled all of them out for the kids last night and of course they wanted play them all.

We have Sequence and Connect Four.

They love puzzles but K's concentration as a bit fried, she likes the change with board games.

I am just at a weird point where we are waiting for the MS to work, could take weeks, so I don't want her mind to take over too much, the hallucinations sneak in sometimes.

The rages get worse, the delusions...etc.
So right now I am having to keep her busy almost 24/7.

Right now she is wondering around lost, already had a rage. She has done 4 projects so far and it is 9a.m.
We are getting ready to go do something...
We have her in "camp" 2 days a week.
O.T. once a week. Swimming for a couple hours every days. But none of it is barely enough.
Right now she elevating again because she can't find something.

Thanks for the ideas!!! Grandma wants to send some things to help...

 

[totoro]

OOOOH I love Cornhole!!!
Living in Indy for 3 years and husband being a midwest/Chicago boy...
I can't believe I lived in Stang's parts pre-board days!

 

[DammitJanet]

Trouble.

Clue

Cheerio

Where's Waldo

Chutes and Ladders

Theres a new Candyland out

Pictionary

Charades

Try chess or checkers

parchessi

kids monopoly

 

[DDD]

Hmmmmmm....care to guess who is a senior? LOL!
Marbles
Pick Up Sticks
Paper Dolls
Jacks
Books........or books on tape.
Jig Saw Puzzles left as a "go to" on a corner card table.

Cards. Cards. More Cards.

DDD

 

[DDD]

If you know how........teach them to knit or to do Bargello? DDD

 

[DammitJanet]

Remember barrel of monkeys?

 

[Andy]

You can make your own indoor toss game.

Put a wash cloth in a ziplock baggie or roll up a large sock (the baggie might get too slippery) or use a very small ball.

Set up various buckets in a line, each one further away from the "Start" line. The goal is to throw the baggie into the first bucket, then the next, then the next. (about 4 or 5 will do).

Use small laundry basket, waste basket, ice cream bucket, cardboard box, ect. Put the smallest closest to the "start" line and the largest at the end of the line so as the distance increases, the goal is larger giving more room to hit it.

Great as a hall way game.

 

[totoro]

Thanks so much!!!
We have a lot of these older ones. But a lot we do not, I am going through all of our games and we are going to start playing them. maybe add a new one once in awhile.
But I think Scrabble Jr., Monopoly, and Uno will be good. I am going to make a list from here and look for sales when I am at stores.

Great ideas!!!