Great Games for Little People: Games to Start With That Won't Make You Crazy

I think it's safe to say that I'm an expert in winter and being cooped up with a lot of little kids! Winter is "challenging" to say the least, and I've had many days where I'm more than proverbially pulling my hair out, but this year we've really turned a corner in how my kids can entertain themselves and I'm really excited and grateful for it -- they're old enough to play games by themselves! With each other!

It's really a remarkable ability that we're just getting a handle on around here, but not only is it a great winter activity, it's also really helping them grow in critical thinking skills, reading, logic, and a little bit in sharing and taking turns. I think there's something wonderful in the fact that kids can still play with tactile games and not simply click, swipe, and push buttons. It's also really great that I can tell a couple kids to go pick a game off the shelf and that they can play it without my help!

Here's some games we own that we have seen used really well in our house for all our kids, I'd love to hear your favourites too because I think games are a fantastic investment and that you can never have too many!

Games for the Tots

Good games for toddlers are hard to come by. They need to be simple, yet still appeal to fun and competition or else a toddler has no desire to stick with it. They also need to not drive the parents insane or else they'll never come off the shelf. It's a tough line to walk but we've found these games have been successful with the under 5 set. My toddlers can play these all with their older siblings and even on their own, although we all know they greatly prefer if mummy plays with them!

Hisss Card Game

This game is based on color matching and it's simple and fun. My 3 year old can play it with the older kids and that's a giant plus.

Little Orchard Game

This one was a great hit at Christmas with my now 4 year old son. He really gets a kick out of it and I play it with him and our 2 year old. It encourages good turn-taking, doesn't take too long to play, and has a giant wooden dice and pieces that the kids love to touch and play with.


Pop-Up Pirate

This one has appeal to little kids, it's simple and tactile, but comes with lots of pieces. So it has driven me a bit crazy, but I trade that off with the 15 minutes of peace I can get out of the kids playing it together. Full disclosure!

Spot it Junior Animals

One of the best games around, this card game that encourages matching and visual concentration can be played in a myriad of different ways. My 3 year old could play many different versions of it and had a great time, but this game is fun for all ages and the grandparents play it with the kids regularly. Highly recommended!



Great Introductory Board Games

These games are more for 4-5 years and up. They're great for introducing kids to the basics of how to play board games, taking turns, beginning logic, and the fun that comes from playing games. These are also great games that you can just tell your kids to go play and shouldn't involve much from you for them to both play and clean up.

Trouble Game

The popping can drive you a little mad, but if they play it in the basement everybody wins! For some reason this is just a hit with kids. All my kids have enjoyed playing it, and once they were taught the ins and outs my husband and I can bow out and get away from the noise.

Battleship Board Game

This one is a little bit more complicated, but it's a really great game for critical thinking skills. My boys especially appreciate it, and it's a great activity for quiet time.

Uncle Wiggly Game

A solid beginning reader's game. Enough action to keep them involved.

Checkers

I know, I know. Who plays checkers anymore?! But this is a great game for building critical thinking skills. I've already seen improvement in the kids' thinking skills just from playing this game. It's great for friendly competition and learning strategy.

Dominoes

This one doesn't see as much play in our house, but when they bring it out everyone wants to play it. Again, a great beginner's game, perfect for number recognition and matching. And easy to learn!

Memory Game

I feel silly saying this, but I remember thinking Memory was stupid and why would anyone have fun playing it. Now I stand corrected because my boys have a great time playing it and are killer good at it. I always lose...to my five year old!

Connect 4

I know, it's just tic-tac-toe. But if a crazy plastic board gets my kids to play a game by themselves then I'm up for it. Perfect game with easy clean up for times when you need kids to just do something by themselves.



Beginner Card Games

My husband and I love cards. Our families love cards. We're really big card game people. It is one of our family tenants to have card game playing children who can identify trumps by the age of ten. Right after fulfilling our baptismal promises for our children comes "teach them how to play cards." Okay, I'll stop now, you get the picture. So far these have been great:

Old Maid

Classic. And if you get a fun deck with cute occupations and illustrations it makes it a lot easier and fun for young kids to play.

Uno Game

Another classic game that's easy for kids to pick up. We haven't played this game as often this winter, but it is a great starter game that's easy for kids to learn.

Rat-A-Tat-Cat

This game is a good one. Adults like to play it and it's a lot of fun. Our kids have so far gotten the hang of it, but still need an adult to play with them, but that's good too. Family games are good games!

There's A Moose In The House

This game is silly but fun and has some good card game fundamentals that aren't in many beginners games. It's probably perfect for our 7 and 8 year olds, but the 6 year old has picked it up just fine.


These are what we've been filling the cold afternoons and long evenings with this winter. Hopefully we'll build upon our repertoire of games and my kids will continue growing up enjoying playing them together. And I might just survive the long Canadian winters!


What are your kids favourites?

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Seven Quick Takes vol. 126

Getting back in the groove with Kelly, because she never loses hers!

{one}

How we spent our 5 summer days. ;)

Wow, I just had to check when I last posted a quick takes and it's been almost two months. I honestly don't get how fast time flies. But I'm glad to be back with a quick note to check in with what I've been up to. How's your summer been? I want to see all of your summer bucket lists checked off! Wait, you don't do that either? Good, glad it isn't just me!

{two}

I spent most of this week getting organized for the school year. Oh yeah, because when I see all the crazy Americans going back to school at this ungodly time of year I finally start to think about preparing for our school year. I had to fill out a bunch of program plans for the government -- boo hiss! -- which is of course a barrel of fun, and I made Amazon go boom with a giant school order. I might as well spend that government money right? We actually have most of our core curriculum already because my kids seemed to finished what they were doing in the middle of last year so I just bought the next grade up so we can really pick up any time we want. I'm aiming for after Labor Day!  

{three}

I also got a lot of other annoying, chore-ish things done this week that I have been putting off all summer. I don't know why it feels good to finally get those things done but it really does. I also always make a list of things to get done in the summer and I always end up doing all of them during the last week of summer. I'm currently organizing books and bookshelves and the only solution I've come up with is I need more books and bookshelves. Which really isn't a solution. But for both those things I need a bigger house. 

{four}

I need a bigger house? But didn't I just write about living with a bunch of kids in a small house? Why yes I did! If you haven't checked it out it was over at Theresa's last week writing about it - the whole series was really great, check out all of them!

{five}

I've also been other places this summer writing a guest post for Jenny at Mama Needs Coffee on living the faith here in Canada. 

And I wrote about a month ago for Patheos and the great blog Love Among The Ruins about the comedy The Last Man On Earth. I don't think I ever mentioned it here on the blog, so if you missed it on Facebook you may never have known - what a shame!

{six}

We went on a little summer holiday for a couple days to the mountains last week and had a really great time! We just love being in the mountains. But it was especially nice to stay at a gorgeous cabin on an even more gorgeous secluded lake. The kids were able to swim on the hot, hot, hot days and then when it dipped to single digit temperatures on the last day we were there we could run around different trails almost by ourselves. (Because apparently the cold temperatures really put a damper on non-Canadians going out of doors...I dunno...maybe...weird...)

{seven}

It's still hilarious how much attention we garner going to tourist-y sites with five kids. It really shouldn't be such a big deal but there are plenty of stares and "Are they all yours?!" Oh, yes they are or else I wouldn't have gotten in the same car with them for 6 hours! Actually the driving went better than expected and at this rate we may be able to drive with them on a decent road trip for more than 3 days in about a decade. Give or take. I just can't not picture travelling with my children as not being utterly exhausting. Even now are kids are getting bigger but it still requires so much work to get them there, so much work while we're there, and still major disruptions to sleep. I'm getting a bit better at accepting it, but I still feel like low-acheiving mom that I don't love and want to travel with them all yet. Just a dose of mommy-confession for you. We really did have a great time and even though it was just three days it was completely worth it and everyone loved it. There's nothing like seeing the excitement of your sweet babies as they experience new things for the first time. Even if they occasionally get a little freaked out over bears and heights! 

Hope you all have a lovely summer weekend -- I may even get crazy and start blogging next week...for real.

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Seven Quick Takes vol. 117 - Road trip!

Joining Kelly and the gang for Friday frivolity!

{one}

Well, this week flew by as we took a little trip to Calgary for a few days. As a testament to how little I leave the house, this was a big deal! Since my husband was taking a week-long course for work there, he thought instead of me languishing, suffering, whining, moaning, at home by myself slowing being taken over by tiny humans who only want to impose there individual wills upon me, that we all go down for a couple of the days. Which in theory sounds fine. It just required some pre-planning, two hotel rooms, and an ample supply of courage for me who had to travel in the car alone with all the kids for about six hours both ways.

{two}

We visited dear friends, enjoyed the fine dining experience that is the continental breakfast with small kids, and partook of city extravagances like ordering pizza directly to the hotel room. It was really great seeing friends I don't get to see nearly enough, and the kids had a great time as we hit up the big science centre and let them go crazy at the hotel pool with waterslide. 

{three}

Since the husband was in his course during the day I handled everything with the kids including breakfast solo. The first morning at breakfast there were chuckles from the whole room as Nora yelled at me for "MO MILK, MOMMEEE!" I brought the little dictator her desired beverage only to find her scooping jam out of the tiny packages with her fingers and promptly applying said jam to every surface within a fifteen square foot area. It was like free breakfast entertainment for the whole hotel!

That night one of my offspring, whom I feel I should protect by not giving his name, ended up puking in the hotel pool. He was swallowing water and well...let's just say our embarrassment was slightly lessened by the fact we were the only ones in the pool...but it's looking like it'll be a family tale told every time we stay at a hotel.

The following morning we journeyed back to the continental breakfast room, but I was half way down the hall from our room when I heard four of my five children yell from the elevator, "Oh no - the door's CLOSING!" By the time Nora and I got to the elevator I could hear them all freaking out and yelling at each other as they descended sans-parent to the lobby. Of course I had to wait about half an hour for the other elevator, and by the time I got down to the lobby they were gone, so I figured they went back up to our room's floor and by the time the elevator slowly opened for me on the second floor I saw four slightly panicked faces hoping really badly it was me in that elevator. Just me and my superb parenting...

{four}

I even made it through the drive home Wednesday, although I felt as if I were run over by a truck by the time we got back at the wee hour of 6 pm. I felt like I was in a nerves of steel contest which made the whole trip home feel as if it were at least 12 hours worth of driving. I swear. I'm not winning any ironman-traveling-with-kids awards, and I'm probably good to not leave the house again until...July. 

{five}

I hope everyone's gotten a chance to listen to the Fountains of Carrots Podcast episode from this week because it's all about my favourite G.K. Chesterton! I think we had a really fun conversation with Michael Lichens about Chesterton without getting too pedantic. The only problem with Chesterton is that his career and writings cover so much that it's hard to cram it all into just one podcast! But we tried!  

{six}

I'm really excited to share that I've contributed to an upcoming book that will be released next month!  It's a book complied by the lovely Michele of My Domestic Monastery and she's brought together some really wonderful writers and mothers to talk about the mysteries of the rosary from a mother's perspective. From what little I've read it's going to be excellent, and I just hope that my contribution isn't bringing the whole thing down. It'll be available in May, and I'll let you know the details when it's released! 

{seven}

I feel as if April is really flying by quickly. We've been lucky to not have any April snowstorms this week or last, and I'm feeling like I can aaallmost pack up the kid's snow clothes. Almost. I'm not going to start packing things up and go and jinx everything now! Or, much more likely, I'm not that organized! But I will feel gloriously lighter when I have those mounds of clothes packed up for a few months and the non-sight of snow boots will not be taken for granted. 

Hope you all have a lovely spring weekend!

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Easter, Smeaster

I'm trying hard to get back in the mommy blogger saddle, so I might as well get things off to a bang with massive amounts of photographic evidence of our Easter! Does Easter always go by for you in a pastel hued blur? I feel as if I blink and it's over, but only after a lot of hours worth of forethought and effort put in by myself, of course.

Dying eggs was not Nora's jam...at all.

Holy Week didn't go off as I'd hoped of course. I feel as if I should just give up the idea of ever getting to every Triduum liturgy until all my kids are out of the house and/or I move. We only had Easter Vigil in our home parish, the other services being about 45 minutes away. But it turned out I couldn't even load myself into a vehicle because last Tuesday I came down with this nasty cold that by Friday I couldn't even get out of bed with. I should have offered up my sufferings, but naturally I threw myself a giant pity party and was just so angry that I had to so sick on the days that I wanted to be healthy or at least attempting to get to places. It felt so anticlimactic after 40 long days of Lent to get hit with another sad bout of sickness on the holiest days of the year.

I figured I had to dress them alike one time in their lives. And I thought it should be sooner rather than later because I don't have long until the boys are going to be bigger than me!

Does every family picture dissolve into multiple children picking their noses? Because it really, really feels like it does.

But with the help of an unknown combination and quantity of cold medication I made it to Easter Vigil. With all the kids.

Don't nominate us for sainthood just yet, because it was our only Easter option and I had already committed myself to doing the music...so the husband got to put up with five kids for two hours far after everyone should have been in bed. They all did pretty well though, we didn't have to take anyone out and only dealt with a couple dozen meltdowns, tantrums, fights, crying episodes. Nora was in full party mode by the end of Mass and walked out with some strangers. We found her...she didn't get too far.

Sunday turned out to be nice and relaxed although the weather was typically horribly cold. My green Easter dream has yet to come true. One year tropical climate...I'll come for Easter! The kids had Easter baskets with books and a few small treats, then an indoor egg hunt, then a frigid outdoor egg hunt in the afternoon because we're Canadian and no weather is going to stop an egg hunt, dammit!

Thankfully I didn't have to worry about any food because we just schlepped a couple steps down the road to my parent's house and everything was taken care of. And yet...I was still pretty exhausted and relished putting the exhausted Easter kids to bed early Sunday night, cracking open some Reese eggs and Riesling (just kidding I never drink white wine by myself!), soak up Mad Men and go to bed by 10:00.

Here's to 50 days of living the Easter season - Alleluia!

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12 in 2014 - It's been a slice!

Dwija the Loveliest is kind enough to host a link up of this years best pics, and I'm so happy to have an official way of creating this sappy post because there's little I enjoy more than looking back at pictures of my growing children and becoming a puddle as I see how much they've grown before my very eyes! 2014 has been a wonderful year, and I'm thankful for all of it, even the snow.

January, heck - the whole of last winter, was rough for me guys. Vastly outnumbered by children, two of whom couldn't navigate the easiest of parking lots themselves, so many cold days, so much not leaving the house. I still have some PTSD when I think about it. This winter has been slightly better so far, but January is just tough to get through. I did post a little decorating of Gemma's room though, and some beauteous G.K. quotes that helped keep me.

See. Winter was rough for all of us. We managed to get through though, with sledding, extra trips to the city, and wine. Or at least wine for me. Here on the blog I got fired up about internet talk about the Catholic subculture not being awesome, because it is, and wrote about it. Jen held her annual 7 days of 7 posts and I am pretty happy that I made it and posted everyday for a week. I also wrote a lot about books as usual and specifically about all the Catholic-bashing in modern fiction.

My baby turned one! Grumpy Kitty had a wonderful day, and was my first one-year-old who blew out her own candle, which seems like a real accomplishment if you ask me. We journeyed through lent, I shared my love for Agatha Christie, pointed out ridiculous fashion trends, and waxed poetic about naming homes. It was a good month.

This is a pretty accurate representation of us all. Luke's off trying to capture something, Dom seems perturbed at our asking him to smile, Gemma looks calm in a sea of crazy, Max is trying to escape, Nora is unimpressed, and I'm yelling at someone. And this was us celebrating Easter! I started a series on moms trying to find time to read books in the midst of the chaos of daily life, I recapped some awesome Mad Men episodes, and had some rough mothering days. 

May came and we finally got rid of winter and dandelions took over the growing grass. I just love this shot of my offspring picking dandelions with our home in the background. It's an A-plus for homeschooling kinda shot don't you think? We had birthday parties, campfires, soccer, and tree house building. I didn't write about any of that though, just the importance of life online, made some sangria for a great book, and talked about how just reading books can challenge your mind when you feel like you're losing it at home with a bunch of kids.

The spring and summer are so beautiful here that I completely forget about how awful and hard the winter is and only think how wonderful it is to live miles and miles from civilization. Kids are outside, the greenery is everywhere, flowers bloom, kids are outside; it's all around awesome. I did however, fall down the stairs to our deck outside which left my incapacitated for a couple days but I couldn't help but thank God it wasn't worse because I basically fell down stairs fully on my back. I talked about summertime classic movies, and loved sharing the things I say a million times a day.

July was out of control with busyness. The oldest two kids went to bible camp in the city for a week and stayed with their grandparents, but emotionally damaged their mother. We went on our first family vacation with five kids to the mountains for a couple days. We didn't even let one fall off the side of a mountain! Then we had swimming lessons at the lake and I flew to Texas for a little thing called Edel and had the most fun I've had in years! I also managed to blog, which looking back on now was pretty amazing. I covered a variety from NFP to G.K. Chesterton to what I learned from Edel. 

August went by in a blur. There was lots of barbecuing, swimming, sprinklers, and popsicles. We didn't hit the books because we have to savour every ounce of warm weather we can, but I did start thinking about the new school year. I also started contributing to the wonderful Catholic devotional site, Blessed Is She. There was also some talk about going to Mass with all these little kids, and I talked about chick lit.

September saw my fifth baby, the girl who refused to crawl let alone walk on two legs, become the first of my kids to break a bone. She broke her leg and had to wear a cast for four weeks. I'm still traumatized even thinking about it, but she's completely fine now. We also dove back into the routine of homeschooling, so it was a rough transition for all, but mostly me. I mostly blogged about my cute children because I was trying to get over the routine change hardiness, and why we should just own our own cooking styles and let go of all the worry.

We had a beautiful October weather-wise so we got to spend more time outdoors which was great and even helped my dad with moving cattle around Thanksgiving. The husband and I also got to escape to Seattle for three whole nights by ourselves and it was a blissfully wonderful trip! There was also a bunch of Halloween business, decorating for fall, talking about building a living Church, and a workout that combines fitness and prayer.  

We're back to living with piles of snow in November, and I started having flashbacks to never leaving the house, but thankfully the kids are much more into Lego this year. That's all I have to say about that. I was also up to my eyeballs in trying to figure out the technical aspects of starting a podcast because Haley and I thought it would be a fun thing to start doing! I also laid a smack-down on the whole capsule wardrobe phenomenon. 

December has been a beautiful, frosty month, and although Advent and Christmas is a ton of work when you're a mom of little kids, it's also magical and exciting. The kids were all atwitter with anticipation this year for Santa, Christmas Mass, Christmas cookies and of course, the Christmas tree that it can't help but make your heart grow three sizes bigger with love. 

Thanks for hanging out with me this year, for reading, for commenting, for sharing your encouragement and inspiration with me. It's been a pretty great year, here's to a wonderful 2015!

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Seven Quick Takes vol. 109

I'm alive for 7 quick takes! I've missed a couple Fridays so you're all completely in the dark of the minutiae of my life. Let's fix that.

Oh, and make sure you check out the great Kelly and all the cool kids.

{one}

December 19?? Are you sure?! December's flown by this year, but in a nice way. Not too busy, not too slow, growing excitement everyday from 5 little people around here. It's the time of year where I shudder at the thought of motherhood + December without Amazon, somehow our pioneering mothers bought us all gifts!?! Let's all bow our heads in admiration and gratitude.

{two}

Don't we look like tough and rugged wolf hunters?

Before I hasten on to the frivolous and token kid pictures, if you don't follow me on instagram you may have missed the excitement that was me tracking down a wolf with 5 small children in tow. I wish I could let you believe the image that I was out in the forests bravely smelling random bushes for the scent of wolf while pulling 5 kids on a sled behind me, but really it's a much less dramatic story.

My dad and brother had been seeing wolf tracks a couple miles from the yard for a couple weeks, but a neighbour came to tell us he had seen a wolf on the road directly in front of our yard two days in a row. There happened to be a dead cow in the area (from another neighbour) and we thought that may be attracting the wolf closer. 

Naturally, I thought I should go out and get some instagram evidence of this wolf by finding a track on the road. It was a beautiful day out so I bundled up the baby and put her in a sled and we walked around for a while looking for tracks pretty playfully. We had no luck so I said to the kids we could just stay out a little longer since we spent all that time getting dressed and all. I walked to the end of the driveway, looked across the road, and saw a very large dog/coyote/wolf/animal as yet undetermined run down the road a couple hundred yards away from me. Naturally I told Gemma to start pulling Nora towards Gramma's house and Max to start running. It was like I was Ma Ingalls. I was so impressed when my kids actually listened to me and starting running! I thought I should stay a little longer to see if the wolf would pop out of the trees along the ditch, then though, probably not worth it so we ran back to the house, jumped in the nearest vehicle, and started driving down the road. I took these bad pictures while driving, so at least I can prove it wasn't a figment of my imagination but the jury's still out on whether it was a really large coyote, or a small wolf. I did however, definitely find a wolf track just outside the yard a little later. So who know. Either way I probably should be a more attentive mother when the kids play outdoors.

Best photo I got.

Wolf track, a little bigger than my hand.

{three}

We also jumped out of the house last Saturday, drove two minutes down the same wolf-sighting road and sawed down a Christmas tree. I know I post pictures of this event every year, so I think it must mean it's one of our favourite Christmas traditions. It also really blows my mind how big my children look. 

{four}

Nora was thrilled to decorate the tree this year. I never get tired of that sweet baby joy at the lights and the tree and the decorations. It's honestly the best. She was in awe of how big the tree was in the house, how the lights sparkled, how she could go up and touch it. And then I let the babies hang some very unbreakable decorations and it pretty much made their year.

{five}

So I know I've said previously that I'm a music snob and like to have a clear difference in Advent and Christmas music, or, at least a bit of emphasis on Advent music during Advent. But I do cave around the Third Sunday of Advent and break out any and all Christmas music all day, every day. Have you guys heard this gem yet? It's Straight No Chaser featuring Kristen Bell, and I heard it yesterday on Spotify and chuckled. I'm a sucker for some good cheesy-ness.

{six}

Guys, I want to bake Christmas cookies but I have a terrible fear that I'll just eat them all myself -  while wrapping, and doing laundry, and cleaning, and the myriad things I need to get done in a week, like an addict to processed sugar. But honestly, sometimes the thought of Christmas cookies keeps me going. I'm still staying strong and not baking yet. 

{seven}

Thanks so much to everyone who's been sharing about the podcast, rating us on iTunes, and talking about it on their blogs. It's really amazing how warm and fuzzy it makes Haley and I. We recorded some really stellar episodes this week with blogging superstah Kelly Mantoan, and the paragon of motherly wisdom Auntie Leila which will air in the new year. If you didn't catch this week's episode with Arleen Spenceley I'd really think it's worth a listen, we had such an interesting and intelligent conversation about what chastity really is and how messed up our world thinks it is. But with more fun than how I just described it. 

Hope you all have a pre-merry weekend. Eat all the cookies!

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