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We love games so much in our family. Out of the 6 of us, 3 are extreme Introverts, 1 is an extreme Extrovert, and the other 2 of us are somewhere in-between. For us, games are a way to spend time together with a common goal (of all playing the same game). Conversations come naturally about playing the game and it is really good quality time together that both the Introverts and Extroverts really enjoy. {Introverts love the game playing, Extroverts love the time surrounded by people.}

Playing games brings people together and teach children in the ways other things can’t. We also try to have dinner together every night that it is possible, and that certainly helps keep family unity, but games do other things:

• Games help children learn how to lose and not lose their cool.
• Games help children learn how to win gracefully.
• Games teach children timing and how to follow a sequence of directions/rules.
• Games teach children logistics and train them to see the big picture.
• Games help children start making plans and strategies, and be able to think through several steps ahead.
• Games give children an opportunity to feel successful.
• Games give children an opportunity to learn how to pick themselves back up and try again if they are NOT successful.
• Games give non-athletic children a chance to learn team dynamics.
• Games give families the excuse to spend quality and quantity time together.

My family goes in waves. Sometimes we are playing a game after dinner every night of the week (like the time I was addicted to Bananagrams and made everyone play with me all the time). And sometimes we play only 1-2 games a week. I thought I’d share some of our favorites in our game cabinet right now (in no particular order, because every person in my family would rank these differently):

1. Apples to Apples
2. Bananagrams
3. Battleship
4. Blink
5. Blokus
6. Canasta
7. Chess
8. Clue
9. Connect 4
10. Dominos
11. Farkle
12. Five Crowns
13. The Game of Things
14. Go Fish
15. Guess who?
16. Guillotine
17. Help Your Neighbor
18. Monopoly & Monopoly Jr 
19. Life
20. Phase 10
21. Q-bitz
22. Qwirkle
23. Qwixx
24. Rook
25. Rummikub
26. Scrabble
27. SET
28. Settlers of Catan & Catan Junior
29. Sequence & Sequence for kids
30. Skip-Bo
31. Sleeping Queens
32. Splendor
33. Spot it!
34. Tri-Ominos
35. Uno
36. Wig Out
37. Yhatzee

* One of MY favorites. My kids and husband would have totally different answers!!! We play a mixture of what makes everyone happy.

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(There are plenty of games in the cabinet that I didn’t share, because we rarely choose those or they are more puzzles than games. They’ll probably get decluttered soon, lol.)

Of course, we love Help Your Neighbor so much, I wrote a whole post about it with a free printable to play!

I hope this list helps you find some new ones to enjoy. If you’re like us, sometimes a fun new game gets us all excited about games again and then we start playing every night.

Don’t forget, games make excellent gifts for any birthday or holiday, like Christmas stockings or Easter baskets!