The Best Board Games for Family Game Night: By Age

2023’s list of the best board games for family game night in an easy to read list by age category.

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Introduction

Ditch the TV, unplug your household, and have a family game night! I am slightly a board game geek! I love board games, and card games. My family used to spend every holiday and rainy, cold or snowy day sitting around the table playing board games. Laughing with each other, eating snacks, taking turns playing game, getting to know each other a little better every time.

I could gush, on and on, about the benefits of board games for your kids and your family, but that’s not what this post is about. On the other hand… maybe I’ll just talk about a couple. This is great stuff!

Benefits of Board Games for Kids

According to extensive amount of research for children’s psychology, such as Child Development Clinic, Australia, there are many different benefits in playing board games with your kids. Board games can:

• Help develop critical social skills
• Lessen screen time and the negative effects
• Help improve cognitive function
• Help improve symptoms of ADHD

I don’t want to get too in depth about the benefits of board games, and how they can improve your child’s development and skills. I will save that for another time.

Now that you know some of the very general benefits of playing games with your kids, let’s talk about the best games for a fun family game night. The list below is given by age, for ease of finding suitable game ideas for your family!

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Best Board Games for Family Game Night: Listed by Childs Age

You can click on the age groups below to head strait to the list for that age.

Some links in this article may be commissioned, this does not affect the price to you, but does provide me commission if items are purchased.

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Best Board Games: 2 – 3 Years

First Orchard

For ages 2 years and up.

Overview:

This game teaches teamwork, social skills, taking turns, and color recognition. In this game everyone wins together and loses together. The repetitive nature of the game is great for teaching younger kids.

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Feed The Woozle

For ages 3 and up (can be used for 2 year old’s)

Overview:

Feed the Woozle silly snacks as a team and learn counting, dexterity, fine motor skills and body awareness. Take out some of the active instructions to use this game for 2 year old’s as well.

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The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game

For ages 3 and up (can be used for 2 year old’s)

Overview:

Be the first to fill your board with each color of acorn, but don’t lose them or get them stolen! Change this to selecting the colors and remove the steals and loses for a 2 year old. Teaching color recognition, matching, strategic thinking, fine motor skills and more!

Best selling pre-school game, 5 years in a row!

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Candy Land

For ages 3 and up (can be used for 2 year old’s)

Overview:

Race to the castle by using the color and treat cards to move forward or backwards. An great classic board game for littles! Teaching color matching and object recognition.

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Monkey Around

For ages 2 and up

Overview:

This game gets you and your littles moving around and doing fun activities. This enhances gross motor skills, spatial concepts, coordination and listening. This is a fun, award winning game that will keep your kids involved and entertained.

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Best Board Games: 4 – 5 Years

Zingo

For Ages 4 and up

Overview:

This is a spinoff of the traditional game Bingo. There are different variations available that include numbers and sight words as well. Slide the zinger, make a match and fill your Zingo card. This game has won multiple awards, and helps to build language and matching skills.

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Yeti In My Spaghetti

For ages 4 and up

Overview:

Remove the spaghetti noodles from the bowl with the yeti on top, but don’t let the yeti fall! This game is great for teaching strategic thinking and fine motor skills. It will give your family a good laugh.

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Monopoly Junior

For ages 5 and up

Overview:

A fun, younger kid friendly version of the original monopoly game. For younger players, this version is fast and simple, and has single bank notes to keep it easy. Teach your kids math skills and the concept of value and transactions.

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Outfoxed

For ages 4 and up

Overview:

Use the clues to find the guilty fox. This is a cooperative board game for your little ones used to learn deductive reasoning, critical thinking, and is fun for all!

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Scrabble Junior

For ages 5 and up

Overview:

This is a game of letter matching for your little ones, but the board has two sides. The other side is an advanced side where your kids can create their own words. Learning letter recognition, spelling, and gracefully winning and losing.

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Best Board Games: 6 – 8 Years

Sorry

For ages 6 and up

Overview:

This is a board game classic that is still topping the charts. This game of sweet revenge let’s you skip, jump, and bump your opponents to be the first to get all 3 pawns “home”. Help kids learn following directions, counting, and critical thinking.

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CATAN Junior

For ages 6 and up

Overview:

This strategic game of building lairs by building ships, collecting and trading resources, and be the first to build 7 lairs. This game takes place in a ring of tropical islands, and is the junior spin off of the classic CATAN game. This is a great game to teach strategy, critical thinking and deductive decision making. It’s a great game to get everyone interacting with each other.

Get the original CATAN for ages 10 and up here: CATAN

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Taco vs Burrito

For ages 7 and up (can be 3 and up if you help add points)

Overview:

This award winning game was created by a 7 year old. You draw from a pile of wacky foods to be the player to create the largest meal. The health inspector, and action cards, add a twist to the game to make it strategic and interesting. This can be a quick play game, or you can play multiple rounds to make the fun last.

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Train of Thought

For Ages 6 and up

Overview:

Another award winning game that promotes thought and communication. This game has questions cards, wild cards and action cards that help families to inspire meaningful communication, get to know each other better, and built trust with honest conversations. This game was a winner of the National Parenting Product Awards, and is the perfect addition to your family game night.

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Scout it Out

For ages 7 and up

Overview:

This strategic game of trivia and adventure is educational and engaging. Be the first to collect 5 cards to win the game. You can collect cards by being the first to guess the state based on the clues given. This game is easy to learn, and packed with knowledge and fun facts about America, and the states within.

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Best Board Games: 8 – 11 Years

HedBanz

For ages 8 and up

Overview:

Set the timer and ask yes/no questions to guess the card on your head band. The player that guesses the most correct cards wins! This is a simple and fast paced game full of laughs and fun. This game will teach children critical thinking and deductive reasoning.

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Exploding Kittens

For ages 7 and up

Overview:

This game of the year award winning game is a fun family favorite. If you draw the exploding kitten, you lose. All the other cards are to help avoid drawing an exploding kitten. This game takes about 2 minutes to learn and 15 to play.

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Double Ditto

For ages 10 and up (can be used for 8 and up)

Overview:

The hilarious game of guessing what the majority thinks. This is a great family game night game that lets you get to know your family, and who thinks like you! Read one category card, and write down two answers you think others will write down. Try to have the most common answers from your group.

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Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

For Ages 8 and up

Overview:

Don’t be the last one to smack the pile in the middle! This is a quick reaction game that requires you to pay close attention. If the word lines up with the card, slap the pile in the middle as quickly as you can. If you are the last one to slap the pile, you get all the cards. This game can be used for many ages, but for reaction time, it’s recommended 8 and up.

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Ticket To Ride

For ages 8 and up

Overview:

Collect and play matching train cards to collect railways across the united states in this strategic and fast paced game. Build train tracks across the United States and try to earn points by building the largest train tracks. This is a fast paced, family fun game that keeps the excitement going.

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Best Board Games: 12 – 15 Years

Incohearent Family

For ages 12 and up

Overview:

This game is very similar to the original game “mad gab”. Incohearent is a best-selling party game, and this is the family version. Try to guess what the gibberish is on the card you are reading, but you only have a certain amount of time to guess the correct sentence. The judge knows the answer, and the first person to guess the sentence or phrase correctly wins the card! This is a fast paced, fun and entertaining family favorite!

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Telestrations

For ages 12 and up

Overview:

You don’t need to know how to draw to make this game fun and hilarious for family game night. Draw out your card on your individual sketch pad and pass it around for everyone to write their guess (in words) of what your card says. The results are hilarious in this fun game of sketched out telephone.

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I Should Have Known That

For ages 14 and up

Overview:

A trivia game with over 400 questions about things you should have known. Instead of getting points for answering questions correctly, in this game you get points subtracted for incorrect answers. This is a fun family game night addition that will get you thinking!

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Taboo

For ages 13 and up

Overview:

Help teammates guess the “guess word” without saying any of the forbidden words on the cards. If you say a forbidden word, you get the squeaker! This is a fun and faced paced family game that is full of laughs.

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Wordle

For ages 14 and up

Overview:

This game features classic play for Wordle, or 3 different variations you can try. Players take turns writing down a secret 5-letter words, and other players try to guess the word in the fewest tries.

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Best Board Games: 16+ Years

Trivial Pursuit

For ages 16 and up

Overview:

This trivia board game features 6 question categories including geography, entertainment, history, art and literature, science and nature, and sports and leisure. There are over 2,900 questions in this master edition. The standard edition comes with less content, but is also less expensive.

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Ransom Notes

For ages 16 and up

Overview:

Use your small pool of words to leave a ransom note, explaining to someone the prompt your given. For example, your prompt may be “tell someone you clogged the toilet at a party”, and you use your word pools to leave the note. Caution to parents, as each family is different, read through the cards before your first round of play. If any are not appropriate for your family/children, simply remove them.

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Rhett and Links We’re Still Good Game

For ages 16 and up

Overview:

Based of the youtubers and best selling authors Rhett&Link, this game will have you laughing in the face of disaster. Use the best words in your hand to fill in the blanks and create optimistic views on the ridiculous disasters presented.

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Pick Your Poison

For ages 16 and up

Overview:

This is a hilarious, and sometimes disturbing, game of “what would you rather do?”. You are trying to decide what you think the majority vote would be between the two different poisons. Caution to parents, this age rating is dependent on your family, and you may want to go through the game cards to determine if there are any you would like to remove.

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Conclusion

This list is most definitely not all inclusive, and is just some of the top rated games from 2023 so far. There are so many classic and new board games that provide great entertainment, fun, and learning experiences for you and your family. Check out more ideas here: Family Game Night Board Game Ideas.

I hope you have found this list helpful, and can use some of these ideas to create the best family game night for you and your family. Remember to play together, and have fun!

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