One of the things our family loves to do is play games together. In fact, we have one night each week designated as “Family Game Night.”
Sometimes we’ll play card games or board games, but some of the ones we enjoy the most are the random games we’ve made up ourselves or that require little to no prep time or supplies.
In an effort to help your family with fun ideas during this season of quarantine, here’s a list of five family game ideas that we enjoy:
1. FLASHLIGHT TAG
This is probably our kids’ favorite of all. They absolutely eat it up when we play this game.
It’s very simple… Everyone needs a flashlight or device equipped with a flashlight. Turn out all the lights in the house. One person is “It”, and on “Go”, everyone goes to hide somewhere while whoever is ‘It’ counts to 30.
When the first person is found and tagged, they join the team of the person who is ‘It’ to find the rest of the players. The last player to be found is the winner. The person who was found first is ‘It’ for the next round.
This game adds a new level of fun and excitement to hide and seek. You just have to try it out for yourself to find out. Mom and Dad might even find themselves having more fun than should be allowed. 🙂
2. THE HAND-STAND GAME
This is another favorite that’s lots of fun, yet very, very simple.
Two people in the family go against each other at a time. They stand facing each other toe to toe about 1-2 feet apart with their hands in front of their chest. On “Go”, they try to hit each others’ hands to knock the other person off balance. Once one person has moved their feet or fallen, they’re out.
You can only touch the other player’s hands and nothing else. If they move their hands out of the way and you touch any other part of their body or fall into them, you are out.
This game is both a lot of fun to play and to watch. We enjoy having “Hand-Stand” tournaments as a family. Here’s a short video clip of my wife and son playing it so you can better understand how it works…
3. MURDER
In this game, you sit in a circle around your kitchen table or on the floor. You will need a piece of paper for every person playing. Put a small dot on just one of the pieces and wad them up into little balls and put them into a bowl.
Allow everyone to take one of the papers and secretly open up the paper wad to see if they are the murderer for that round (if they get the one with the dot). Then wad it back up and put it in the bowl (no one should know who the murderer is).
Once everyone has put their paper wad back into the bowl, the murderer is to wink at other players when making eye contact, but do so without being caught or seen by anyone else. Once a person knows they have been winked at by the murderer, they are to casually state, “I’m dead” and they are out of the game.
The goal of the murderer is to ‘kill’ everyone in the circle before anyone who’s still in guesses correctly who the murderer is. If someone wants to guess who the murderer is, they may do so at any time. If they are right, they are the winner, if they are wrong, they are out of the game. So either the person who is the murderer wins by killing off all but them and one other player, or one of the players wins by guessing correctly who the murder is first.
4. WRESTLING
This one is nothing new, but it should certainly be on every family’s game list, and especially if you have boys! There are so many variations to wrestling that can keep you and your kids occupied for hours (that is, if your body can keep up that long).
Especially when they were young, my kids loved to wrestle on a regular basis, and dad tried to accommodate their desire. Here are a few fun forms of wrestling we’ve enjoyed:
- Basic wrestling – one-on-one or all-in
- Dad against all – our four kids against me all at the same time
- Note – Make sure to eat your Wheaties and be prepared to exert a lot of energy on this one. 🙂
- Hold-down wrestling matches – this is where you try to hold all of them down from being able to get up for 30 seconds. My wife keeps time. This one gets harder as your children age, but nonetheless, always fun.
Multiple studies have shown that safely rough-housing with your kids provides a multitude of positive benefits. Oh, yeah!
5. SPOONS
This is a great game to play at the kitchen table. You’ll need one less spoon on the table than you have players (if you have 5 players, you will need 4 spoons). You will also need a deck of playing cards.
Lay the spoons out in the middle of the table, centered between all players. Have one person who starts with the pile of cards and passes them around the table one card at a time. Each player can choose to keep the card or continue passing it on. Each player can only have 3 cards in their possession at one time, and at any time that one player gets 3 cards of the same number, they reach for a spoon.
As soon as someone reaches for a spoon, all the other players must try to grab one of the spoons before they’re all taken. Of course, since there is one less spoon than players, the person who doesn’t get a spoon is out of the game.
Remove one spoon from the table, and continue playing rounds until you get to the final round with just one spoon and two players. Lots of quick action, suspense, and fun!
Family games are a huge way to cultivate laughter and create memories in your home. The fun is only limited to your imagination.
God created families to have fun together, so it may just be about time for you to “get your game on!”
What are some of your families’ favorite game ideas? And what are some of the other fun things you’re doing with your family during quarantine?
- One more thing… Here’s an amazing resource for your family to check out during quarantine… The newly released movie, The Pilgrim’s Progress, has been temporarily made available for free here! This is a powerful story that will both challenge and encourage your family’s faith.
