Five Simple Ideas For Your Next Family Games Night

A family games night can help create stronger bonds between all the members of your family, building deeper relationships between children of all ages, their parents and possibly their grand-parents. Here are five fantastic ideas for a family games night.

Games should simple enough for the youngest players yet challenging enough for older players. To ensure no one is excluded, they should also be suitable for any number of players. These five family games fit these requirements.

Rummy is a thinking card game using a normal deck of cards without the jokers. Two or three players have ten cards each, four or five players receive seven cards each, six players each receive six cards. The rest of the cards are placed face down as a pick-up pile in the middle of the table, with the top card turned over and put face up beside the pile to start the discard pile. Players look at their cards to see if they can form any 'melds'. A meld can be three or more cards that either form a run of the same suit (for example; Ace, 2, 3, 4 of Hearts) or are of the same rank (for example; three Jacks). Note that in Rummy an Ace always counts as a "1" and is never higher than a King. Player One has the choice of picking up the top card from either the discard pile or the pick-up pile, before getting rid of any card by placing it face up on the discard pile. This means that he or she will end their turn with the same number of cards they started with. Players continue in a clockwise direction. The first player to form two or more melds of all the cards in their hand and discard their final card wins the game.

Table Story is a simple word game that has become one of my family's favourite games since it involves everyone and requires no preparation. An adult or older child begins to tell a story that each player then continues. For example, player one starts by saying, "Bill was walking along the street when an umbrella landed at his feet. He looked around but could not see anyone. Where had the umbrella come from?" The next player then continues the story for a few sentences before the following player takes over, and so on around the table. The story may change dramatically, but it must continue to make sense. After a few rounds, the original story teller can end the story.

Mute Spelling is suitable for anyone who can spell, regardless of their age. Each player begins with a score of "A". One player is given a suitable word for them to spell but they can only say the consonants. Vowels must be spelled using the following symbols:
    "A" - raise your right hand
    "E" - raise your left hand
    "I" - point to your eye
    "O" - point to your open mouth
    "U" - point to any other player.
For example, the word "APPLE" would begin with the player raising their right hand (A) then saying P-P-L before raising their left hand (E). The score of any player who makes a mistake goes from "A" to "E" and so on through the vowels (I, O, U) until they get out on their fifth mistake.

Pig is a simple dice game that uses only one die. The aim is easy - reach fifty points by throwing the die. Players can choose to throw the die as often as they wish during their turn, adding the scores with each throw. If you stop at any time, you carry that score on until your next turn. Beware, though, since a throw of "1" cancels your entire score for that round. Players take turns building their scores until one player reaches fifty points. With my family, some players choose to player cautiously and stop when their score reaches ten points in any round, while other players choose to try for the full fifty points in every round.

Anti-Um is a spoken word game that can really help language and public speaking skills as well as being fun. A topic is chosen for the player, such as "Books" or "Painting". They then have thirty seconds to consider the topic before speaking about it for one minute or more. They must not pause or say "Um" (or any similar word) during their speech. Every player has a turn, with a different topic chosen to suit each player. It is quite hard when you first try, but after a few weeks practise it becomes easier.

A family games night can always include commercial games like Yahtzee or Clue, but why not have just as much fun with nothing more than a deck of cards and a few dice? After all, it is not the cost of the game but the quality of the time spent together that is most important. For more details on these and other family games, click on our website link below.