New Board Games for Kids

For those of you with kids who love Angry Birds, Mattel has created the board game version! Who knew things would happen in reverse, starting in the digital world, then ending up with an actual game! In this game, to win collect enough points to build your structure faster than your friends can knock it down with an Angry Bird! The game includes three Angry Birds, four green pigs, one slingshot-style launcher, 14 structure pieces, 40 mission cards, 16 points cards, a bonus points star, and a bonus points egg.

Another great game by Mattel, Apples to Apples is recommended for kids ages 12 and up, and is great for large party groups, and when traveling. Each round, one player is the judge. There are two stacks of cards. The card in the green deck is the word for the round, such as timeless or intelligent. Players pick one of the cards in their hands that best describes that word and in random order the judge reads the cards, picking their favorite answer. This game can get extremely silly, especially if you know something personal about the other players.  

Banangrams encourages people to pick letter tiles, than at the same time, each player individually creates their own cross word using interlocking words in a horizontal or vertical fashion, from left to right. Be the first use all your tiles and win. This game is similar to Scrabble, but much faster paced! Recommended for ages 7 and up.

How can you make a list of the best board games and leave this timeless game out? Generations of kids have been playing many different versions of Candyland.  However, what ever the version the same skills of learning to match colors, take turns and play games is still the same! Recommended for kids ages 3 and up.

Kids of all ages will love searching for the hidden treasure coins to unlock the treasure while they match colors, shapes, letters and numbers in this preschool game. Recommended for ages 3-5.

Families and friends will work together following along the gameboard, completing lots of different activities along the way. They are 14 different activities that include answering trivia, completing word games, sculpting with dough, humming the sound of tunes, all while their team members try to guess! The first to the finish line wins! Recommended for ages 8 and up.

Featuring Dr. Seuss and the Cat in the Hat, this is a great family game, geared for preschool aged children 4 and up, that incorporates all sorts of challenging motor actions. Children flip over different cards that correspond to actual objects in the game. So they might turn over cards that say, "Can you jump up and down while holding a cake between your elbows?" Skills to help kids learn about taking turns, counting and colors are reinforced. 

This is a game of visual skills where the goal is to arrange your cards through a variety of actions, so that 4, 5, or 6 cards in a row have the same pattern. Players switch cards with their opponents, but there are lots of different ways to allign the patterns and with the simple taking of 1 card, the whole strategy can shift immediately.

This game is recommended for players ages 9 and up. Drive your car around the "game of Life" to see whether you went to college, had children, or were married? The goal is to retire with the most amount of money!

For those people who love the simple game of Tic Tac Toe, they will love Goblet Jr. Using different sized cups, players can place their piece over their opponents, and gobble them up to achieve a whole new strategy!