Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Best Board Games for GT kids?

Would anyone share your favorite board games for GT kids? I have a 5 yr old and a 3 yr old boys. Santa has already picked up their gifts. I have to do mine through Amazon. Thanks a lot.

For that age.... Guess Who, Dominoes, and at 5 my DS was wayyyyyyy into Monopoly - in fact we had a Rudolph version. I am sure I will think of more later.

There are some in this thread:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/90497/1.html

The bolded ones were recommended multiple times by people here. I can't update the original post now, since it's locked, but I hope it helps.

Thanks lucounu. I am surprised that Hedbanz Game is not on the list.

My guy (3yr old) loves perfection and operation (without batteries or timer) at the table by himself. Of course I put it away when he's not using it. Perfection has lasted a long time and has been much loved and used often as far as toys go. Just bought him magnetic Supermind and Mighty - too soon to tell, but I believe these too will have staying power as entertain yourself games.

Clue, monopoly, yahtzee, go fish, and connect four are fun, but those are fun because they're time spent playing games with momma. Side effect of yahtzee- the other day ds took a stray d6 from my jewelry box (souvenir of mine) and was rolling on the floor off the fridge and calling the numbers outloud. When I noticed he showed me the dice to prove he called the right number.
Since you have two kids already you could go with hungry hippos.

At that age, Dominos were big. Now at 7, DS loves Blokus!

That's tricky to find ones they both can play together. I have a DS6 and a DD3. Honestly, DS6 plays games for older kids/adults and has for the last couple years (like Blokus, Phase 10, mastermind, Carscassone, and other games that are mostly strategy based). So he can't really play those games with DD3 and we play together after she is in bed. He does however really like to play games with her so he tries to play the games she can play. Those include: Cariboo, go fishing, kerplunk, hungry hippos, hi ho cherrio, candy land, chutes and ladders, monopoly jr (not sure if she sat for this one but he tried it). Not board games, but they also build together with block buddies, wedgits, and tinkertoys and things like that. Also DS loves those thinkfun games: hoppers, chocolate fix, serpentiles, cover your tracks. And DD likes to just play around with the pieces and match the patterns. She doesn't qutie get how to play yet, but they can each pick one out and play alongside eachother in their own ways.

My husband and sons absolutely love playing laser chess. http://www.khet.com/

My DC are 22 mos apart. Even though DD(now 5) didn't quite get the entire game at 3, she did (and still does) enjoy Uno. We did have to adapt some of the rules though - like if she had a blue card but didn't want to put it down, she could pick up a card from the deck, etc. DS(7 on Saturday) has been playing Uno since he was 3 as well. Of course, he was strategizing before he could even hold all the cards in his hand at one time!

I will add the new recommendations here to the other thread. For a 3 year old, I recommend these as possibilities, in no particular order:

Clever Castle (single player)
Rush Hour Jr. (single player)
Topitop (the snowman one is way cuter, but both versions are the same gameplay-wise)
Carcassonne (a three-year-old can have fun playing this, though the totalling up may have to be done by someone else)
Froggy Boogie
Don't Break the Ice
Bandu / Bausack
Blokus / Blokus Duo
Sequence for Kids
Tiddly Winks
The Ladybug Game
Old Maid
Chinese Checkers

My son started fascinated in building paper airplanes at 6 and extended his interests in origami at 7.

There are a slew of nice little carved wooden magnetic chess sets on eBay. Here's a sample:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...p;ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_4804wt_754

You can get them in a range of finishes and board sizes, from 5" on up. There's also a Kasparov-branded one available in 5" and 7". After getting one of the 7" Kasparov ones I think it's nice enough, but I'd probably go with one of the sets made in India if I had to do it over again.

Even to this day, no matter how hard I try, DD5 will not accept that having the Old Maid at the end means she loses. LOL.

Wished we had more time to play... but a couple of games that DS7 enjoys are:

* Labyrinth (http://www.amazon.com/Ravensburger-26448-Labyrinth/dp/B00000J0JF/ref=pd_sim_t_1)
* Legos Minotaurus (http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Games-4568196-Minotaurus-Game/dp/B002WCNKUQ) There are several lego based games now too.

Good luck. Happy holidays.

JB

I second Labyrinth and my son loves any form of Monopoly and one of his favorites is Ticket to Ride....he asked for these new board games for Christmas...Dicecapades Word Pirates and Dicecapedes Number Ninjas.

My 6 yr DD's love
scrabble and up words

ad are getting the new lego games form santa

Scrabble, Equate, Blink, SET, Blokus, Rumicube

I still shudder when I think of the game Old Maid. I ripped up the Old Maid card at my cousins house when I was little and got in so much trouble. Just say NO to Old Maid ha ha ha :)) Nan

Yeah, I wasn't much into it as a kid either. I think it's one of the better games for getting very young kids in good form to play card games in general, though. Even just holding a few cards up at a time, so they can be seen but hidden from other players, can be tough initially.

It would potentially be a good choice for a child who's just beginning to learn to take turns during a game, but would find a lot of rules frustrating. With my son, we had lots of fun early on with poking up cards in the middle so they'd be taken, bluffing, etc.

I play it this way with my son. I don't think he's going to live his life scarred by the Old Maid like I have.

We still like the Ladybug game and Sorry (and Sorry Revenge card game). Go Fish. We like Guess Who as well.

I agree with the Old Maid reference. However, my daughter loved this game when she was young. I jokingly called it "Confirmed Bachelor".

Jenga is a great game that gifted students seem to love. And I agree with the dominoes - always good.

I'm glad to hear of someone else playing this game. I think it is so cool!

ds9 just loves monopoly. when he was little he liked Payday alot. We played Payday alot when he was 3-5. Also, anything from Thinkfun. He was really into Rushhour at that age and any of the others (Tipover, etc)

also loves Blokus, Stratego, clue and Risk...LOVES Risk!

Set is good for any age too

This is cool!

We love Chess, UNO (with its math variations), and math dice games (6 6-sided, 2 12-sided and you multiply the 12's to get a number that you have to make up with the 6's by + - / * ^ ) We also have Equate and have made up our own version of Space-opoly that has planets/moons you can buy in the $10,000 range (and build satellites instead of hotels, spaceship malfunction for 'Go to Jail', etc). We often bring a couple of these to the bagel store on Saturdays and spend a few hours playing together (and ordering about a dozen bagels between all of us!) And no one can beat me at Mastermind, but they love to try!

Aurora

Not sure if Bananagrams has been mentioned yet--really fun for both grown-ups and kids. We play the shorter version.

Have you seen this thread?
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/91725/1.html

Great thread - thanks for compiling that list.

Since it appears it can't be edited, I thought I'd mention a couple over here that may not have been posted.

When he was 4, ds enjoyed his dad's old strategy game (it may be out of print, I don't know) called 'Conquest of the Empire'.

And one of the two big hits last month at Christmas was Dungeons & Dragons. Both the 11-year-old and the 9-year-old are reveling in it. (The other hit was a large Zome kit.)

Hiya,

DD 8 and DS 6 love chess, and also the board games found on the link below:

http://www.cogno.com/#/games

Hope this hasn't already been posted, sorry if it has and I overlooked it.

K x

Kate, you just made DS6's day! He can't wait to get into Cogno! You wouldn't believe how inspired he is to get his EPGY done now (since mean Mommy says that must come first). Thanks!!