Five Inexpensive Ideas for a Family Games Night



Posted: Friday, August 27, 2010

by Andrew Low
http://www.family-games-treasurehouse.com

A family games night is wonderful for producing deeper relationships between parents and children of all ages. It can help build bonds that will last a lifetime. Here are five inexpensive yet fabulous ideas for your next family games night.

Games need to be suitable for the whole family, so they should be simple enough for younger children while still providing a challenge for older players. Also, they should be suitable for any number of players. Here are five games that fulfil these requirements.

Rummy is a strategic card game using a normal deck of cards (no jokers). Two or three players receive ten cards each, four or five players have seven cards each while six players receive six cards each. The remainder of the deck is placed face down as a pick up pile in the middle of the table. The top card is then turned face up and put next to the pick up pile to start the discard pile. Players look at their cards and try to form 'melds'. A meld is three or more cards, either of the same rank (for example, three Kings) or a run of cards of the same suit (for example, Ace, 2, 3, 4 of Diamonds). Note that in Rummy, the Ace is always the lowest card, counting as '1'. Player One can choose to pick up the top card from either the discard pile or the pick up pile, before getting rid of any card by putting it on the discard pile (face up) so that they end up with the same number of cards as they started with. Play continues in a clockwise direction around the table, until one player (the winner) has formed two or more melds from the cards in their hand and discards their final card.

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 an easy dice game for any number of players using only one die. Players take turns rolling the die and adding their scores for each roll. They can choose to stop at any time and keep their score for that round, but a roll of "1" wiped out the score for the round and ends their turn. Scores are added for each round, and the first player to get an overall score of fifty points or more wins the game. In my family, one son plays cautiously and stops when his score reaches ten points in any round, while another son tries to score the full fifty points every round.

Anti-Um is a word game that can help build speaking and language skills. A player is given a subject to speak about, such as "Flowers" or "Pollution". They have thirty seconds to think about the subject before they must give an impromptu speech for at least one minute without pausing or saying "Um" or any similar word. Everyone has a turn, with the subject chosen to suit the player. Although it is quite hard when you first start it becomes much easier with a few weeks practise.

You can always play commercial games like Monopoly or UNO on family games nights, but why not have as much fun, using only some dice and cards? The strength of the relationship building is more important than the price sticker of the game. For more details on these and many other family games, check out our website.

Andrew owns Family Games Treasurehouse which has rules for over two hundred family games. Visit http://www.family-games-treasurehouse.com and sign up for our free newsletter to download our ebook, "25 Family Dice Games". This article is copyright but may be freely republished provided the text, author credit, site links and this copyright notice remain intact.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Jennifer Stewart
 1 year 269 days ago.
153 fans.
Table Story and Anti-Um sound like a lot of fun to me!
» left by Andrew Low 1 year 267 days ago.
2 fans.
Yes. As I said in the article, Table Story and Anti-Um are some of my family's favourite word games. I have also used them to help build conversational skills in a boys' club and everyone really enjoys them.
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