It’s National Board Game Week – so I thought I would share some of my favorites. We try to carry awesome games that are not available everywhere (and which the gift recipient is not likely to have already).  Chances are, if you are giving  Candy Land, Clue Jr. or Scrabble, they’ve already got it.

By far, our household favorite is Gobblet Jr., essentially a more complicated version of tic-tac-toe. The playing pieces come in different sizes and the bigger ones can “gobble up” the smaller ones and take their spaces.  It is a great strategy game for ages 5 and up and both of my kids thoroughly enjoy it (as do I). It’s also won about a bajillion awards if you don’t believe me.

For the younger set, three and four year olds, Diggity Dog is a great pick. Kids move the dogs around the board the number of times as the dog “barks.” When their dog finds the matching dog bones they get to pick them up with the dog’s magnet nose and return them to their doghouse.  This game is so much fun and teaches young children counting, colors, and develops fine motor skills. It’s not available everywhere so chances are the kid won’t have it already.

For 8 and up, one of our favorites is the Scrambled States of America.  I love it especially because it is compact and can go anywhere with you. And, it is so much fun that kids won’t even think of it as educational. My son Josh wants to play it all the time and luckily his grandma loves to play it with him. It has become a bit of a tradition for them to play it together.

Board games make great gifts – just be sure to pick one a little off the radar and appropriate for the age. Don’t buy “up” when it comes to board games because it can be very frustrating for a child to try to play a game that requires a skill that their age has not yet developed (i.e. reading).  I’ll never forget when Maya received Scrabble Jr. at age 4 – she didn’t even know all of her letters yet and someone gave her a game that involved spelling. Needless to say, it sat in the closet for a long time!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 9:43 am by lisa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.