Educational Games for Family Fun:: Great Holiday Gift Game Ideas

educational games

Playing games has always been a favorite activity of mine. There are games for everyone: all ages, stages, and group sizes. I am happy our family is getting to the stage of having weekly (realistically) monthly game nights where everyone can join in the fun.

The holidays are my favorite times to break into the game closet because I have time to slow down with my kids.

We can cozy up in sweatpants or jammies, make hot cocoa, and enjoy winter inside. The best part besides time together…many of these games are educational, and they don’t even realize they’re learning through play.

Do you have a favorite game you like to play with your family?

Consider gifting a new game for your family this year. Here are some of my favorite educational games (loosely organized by ages).

Card Games

Crazy Eights, Skipbo, Old Maid, Go Fish, UNO, Gin, Phase 10, Slap Jack, and Hearts, and Zeus on the Loose.

Younger Age

Hi-Ho Cherry-O, Matching, Eye Spy It, Puzzles, Connect Four, Dominos

Middle Age 

The Allowance Game, The Game of Life, Scrabble, Monopoly, Yahtzee, Checkers, Chutes and Ladders, Rummikub, Bananagrams, Sorry, Sequence, Mastermind, Cranium

Older Age

Cribbage, Ticket To Ride, Settlers of Catan, Risk, Battleship, Chess, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuiteducational games

This is just a small listing of what our family enjoys playing…also made me put Scrabble (I hate Scrabble). Ha! If I have to play Scrabble, then my husband gets to play “I Love Lucy” Monopoly!

ellenkehs
Ellen Kehs was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois where she met and later married her high school sweetheart, Mason. Together they’ve traveled the world, most recently touching down in Omaha in June 2019. She’s a mom to three little boys, Theodore (nine), Woodrow (seven), and Maximus (four). Life is never boring with her boys! Ellen loves being a military spouse and she embodies the “bloom where you are planted” mentality. In addition to soaking up whatever current city she’s living in, she is passionate about reading and getting books in the hands of children, as well as helping other mamas connect with each other. She has a bachelor’s degree in secondary English education, a master’s degree in adolescent literacy and technology, and she teaches 6th-12th grade English online full-time, but is primarily a stay-at-home mom. Her hobbies include, exploring, reading, swimming, napping, snapping pictures, playing games, baking, and loving on the little men in her life.