Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Games for a fairly wide spread in sibling age?

Hi...the board game thread surfacing made me think to ask. Does anyone know of games that kids with a four-year spread in age can play? We LOVE Blokus because it's the only game we've run across that our three year old can play with the rest of the family. We'd love to have some other options, esp. as the three year old does tend not to win, which gets frustrating to him. Any ideas? I suppose I should say, not something like Candyland that makes the 7.5yo (and their parents) want to strangle themselves rather than play. I'm looking for things that a smart nearly four can play, but that adults like, too. Good grief...it's amazing that there's even one!

Have you tried Battleship? Even with a two-year age split, it helps if I team up with the younger sibling and coach to even things up a little.

We LOVE the cranium games. Balloon Lagoon is terrific (probably because I don't like board games and it is more like a collection of 4 carny games). It isn't going to lock in a 7.5 year old with parents reading this website for long... but it isn't a brainhammer like candyland. Conga and Candoo can be manipulated for little kids to play - you just need to alter the rules of play a little so it doesn't frustrate. Also, we love charades - we have a girly set of cards the oldest girls picks from then we make up ones for the youngs

Also, we had luck with Jenga - the little kids just get to stack the blocks up for the adult while the bigger kids can pull from the middle. Silly games still work for us - the occasional hungry hippos - the 2 year old's favorite. When our oldest was little - 3 - she did like the princess monopoly game. We also let the middle play scrabble with us when she was barely 3 - instead of words she had to make a pattern 4 Bs or SSNNSS or FDFD. Of course one day she spelled pickle (without an e though) and I almost said exclamed something one shouldn't say.

Everybody tastes are so different but those were some of our favorites.

Hi, montana!

Well, I have test subjects the same ages and gender as yours (with one in the middle)...and here's what they like:

-best of all here are the Family Pastimes cooperative games. We have several of these, and they're all really quite fun. Low-tech, inexpensive, and good for promoting family harmony! Some favourites: Harvest Time, Granny's House, Growlies in the Garden, Bus Depot Diner, The Secret Door, Sleeping Grump, etc.

-some card games work pretty well: Old Maid, Fish, Rummy, Crazy Eights, Speed, etc. I've also taught them all some solitaire variations, so they can amuse themselves when nobody else wants to play anything. Other card games that are good here are Rhyme Thyme, Set, and the Professor Noggin games.

-not a game, but jigsaw puzzles always work well in groups here. Jenga is also fun.

-I wouldn't have thought so, since it's marked 12 and up on the box, but Artifact has worked surprisingly well with our group. We just tweak the rules a little bit to make it easier for Chico to keep up (we give him the easier challenge cards, for instance), and turn it more in the direction of a cooperative game by having everyone leave their artifact cards face-up. They all really like this one, and it's fascinating for grown-ups, too.

-some old faithfuls we play at my mom's are pretty good, too, though Chico needs help with some of these: Clue, Masterpiece, Junior Monopoly, Junior Scrabble.

Hope that helps!

peace
minnie

wow! I thought I might get no replies at all on this one! I am THRILLED all these ideas - I've never heard of things like the purple crayon game, which the 3yo might love, if he could tolerate us drawing for him, as he loves to tell stories these days. Artifact sounds cool, too, as fascinating for grown-ups is a huge, huge plus! And some of the tweaks! I'm slapping my head here. Like the scrabble patterning...that's brilliant! And we have battleship and it's our older son that refuses to play with his brother...I'll have to see if I can make him give it a try, b/c life for everyone will be so much better when they can play these things!

Is there any point to buying something like Junior Scrabble? How are these junior versions different?

But a lot of these, I don't know at all! I'm going to see if I can find a local-ish library that might do game loans, b/c I want to try these without buying...too many suggestions to do that!

thank you all...

Well, I wouldn't spend big money on Junior Scrabble myself...but it's sitting there at my mom's, and they like it because they can do it together (Harpo can play real Scrabble with us, but the other two can't--but now that I see the brilliant kickball tweak, we will do that, too!). The words are already on the board, and you use the letter tiles you pick up to complete the words that are already there. Junior Monopoly is acquiring rides/attractions at a fair, rather than real estate, and the amounts of money are less (it seems to me that the highest denomination bill is a 5!).

I'm liking the sound of the purple crayon game, too--I'll have to see if I can find that one!

Another game that goes well here sometimes is Don't Make Me Laugh Jr. (they have to be in the right mood for this one!)--pick a card and act out whatever goofy skit/charade is on it, and move around the board if you can make somebody laugh. Someone gets stuck wearing a clown nose sometimes--silly, but fun if they're feeling silly already.

Artifact is an Outset Media game--their company has won some awards from Mensa and similar groups for their games (Rhyme Time and the Professor Noggin ones are theirs, too, I believe). It's a big hit with my budding archaeologist, I must say.

We like Feed the Kitty. It moves fast, it involves no reading, and it's fun. Also Uno and Skipbo.

My kids are 6 1/2 years apart with the younger being 4. Finding games to play together has been a challenge, but not impossible. Cranium games are usually adaptable to various age groups. Games of luck such as Don't spill the beans, Operation, Buckaroo or Tumbling monkeys are easy to play with various ages. Bingo is also good for DS4 for numbers and letters while DD calls the numbers for the rest of the family.

I usually buy board games when they are on clearance and we have accumulated quite a few. Having a variety of games is helpful to prevent boredom.

Jen

One more thought...there are some great games at MindWare--Qwirkle looks like lots of fun!

peace
minnie

Hi, I am new here but thought I would chime in. We LOVE games at our house, and my DH has amassed quite a collection of really great games by reading boardgamegeek.com. It has useful reviews and also, for some games, instructions on how to handicap the older players to even the playing field.

Another tip that we used with our DD5 when she was younger is to ask her if she would like us to play "easy, medium, or hard" and adjust our strategies accordingly. Obviously this doesn't work as well with older siblings.

We only buy games that will be enjoyable for the adults as well as the child. We got rid of the mind-numbing candyland type games (ugh!).

Here are some game suggestions that we have been playing with our DD since she was 3.

Labyrinth (skip the junior version, give the experienced players more cards to find or let junior players PICK which card to find next)
Blink
Blokus, DD also likes to play this symmetrically where she mirrors what my DH does.
Pick Picnic, highly recommended
Castle keep, has lots of optional rules
Rat a tat Cat
Doodle dice, very fun!
Sequence for kids
Skip bo junior
Chicken cha-cha-cha (the best memory game I've ever played)
Incan Gold
Giro Galoppo
Marrakesh

Some of these games can be hard to locate, so here are some sites that carry them: timewellspent.org, funagain.com, and boardgameprices.com

Hope that helps!
Dawn