Fun Games for Family

As parents, Aileen and I believe that play time as a family is a great way to build bonds with our children as well as letting them learn as they play. In this post, I will share two of our favourite indoor games - Monopoly Junior and Jenga. 

The Monopoly Junior is a simplified version of the popular board game, Monopoly, aimed at children. It has a smaller, rectangular board and instead of being based on street names, it is based on fun fair to make it more child-friendly. While the rules of the game remain unchanged, the game is simpler e.g. the currency is in denominations of $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5, each house is called a ticket booth, the chance cards are worded with simple English that a 5 years old could read, etc. 

The Monopoly Junior is a great game for the children as they learn to count the dollar notes, the number of steps to take based on their dice throw, read the chance cards by themselves as well as learning to be gracious when lost in a game.

Another game that the children love, is Jenga. Jenga is a game that tests one's physical and mental skills. During the game, each player takes turn to remove a block from the tower and balance it on top, creating a taller and increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses. The loser is the person who makes the tower collapse. 

At home, we play a simpler variant i.e. taking out a block at a time without toppling the tower. In this game, the children get to train their motor skills as well as finding creative ways to remove the blocks e.g. by tapping with finger nails, using a block to push out another, etc. You can devise your own variants of the game such as removing only specific color blocks, removing two different color blocks at one time, etc. After each game, the children get to count the number of blocks that they collected. It is a simple way to let them practise their math too.

These are fun games that you can buy from major toy stores. I am currently scouting around for more fun board games in Singapore and online. Will update this post with more recommendations. Have a great time bonding with your children!