Tuesday, October 29, 2002
An Intergenerational Games Night
I haven't been able to stop thinking about the magnitude of family fun described in Jan Nickerson's response to my open query about intergenerational games. Yesterday's Drawing Quotes game was part of it. Today, I decided that I had to blog the rest of it.
Jan writes (Bernie laboriously adds links where appropriate):
Our ages range from 10 to 17 for kids, 40's and 50's for adults, and 75-85 for grandparents. We especially like to play family games on New Year's Eve - fun for all!
There's never time to play ALL the games we're prepared to play - we just self-organize around whichever ones people want to play. By having the round robin, people can choose. Those who want to play Magic, for example, can for one 30 minute round, and still be available to play other games during the night with people who don't play Magic. If you've ever been to an Open Space Conference, that's basically how we organize it. Half hour time slots are rows of the matrix, Rooms with game selections are columns of the matrix. Kids get to choose who they'll play what against in each time slot, making sure that they play at least 1 game with each person there (works for 8 people). After the kids have chosen, which includes committing adults in different time slots and games, then the adults fill in the empty slots. Don't worry if a game takes less than 30 minutes - time to play another quick version, or refill a drink. This variety and mixing gets our kids asking for game nights with the family and friends.
Computer games we love to play include:
Zoombini, and all of the Dr. Brain's (e.g. see how many puzzles you can do in 20 - 30 minutes)
Jigsaw (Bernie notes: this online Jigsaw puzzle site allows you - if you join, for free - to upload your own photos and make puzzles out of them. All puzzles on this site can be made more or less difficult, changing the size and number of pieces. Very cool.)
Board games we love include:
Apples to Apples (great for all ages 11 and up) (there are sets allowing you to extend the age range downward to 7)
Loaded Questions (GREAT fun, especially for friends and family you don't necessarily see often - perfect for holidays)
Cranium (fun to see who becomes the resident actor, singer, artist, or factoid expert!)
Pictionary
Upwords
Tangrams
Elferraus (German game by Ravensburger, building up and down sequence with 4 suits)
Hot Seat (like loaded questions, esp good for teenagers)
Jenga Truth or Dare (like Jenga tower of wooden sticks, but each one has a truth or dare challenge - good for teenagers)
Old Standby Favorites:
Charades
Card games/activities:
Crazy Uno (see instructions in the Deep Fun weblog - or just google search for them)
RummiCube
Sequence (my husband and I have played this at least once a day, for 2 years now!) - see below for rules variations
House of Cards (see how many cards you can add to the house of cards in 5 minutes, without making it fall)
Fluxx (rules change every hand!)
Bali (like double solitaire, but with letters building up words)
Magic (for those who know how to play)
Jan writes (Bernie laboriously adds links where appropriate):
Our ages range from 10 to 17 for kids, 40's and 50's for adults, and 75-85 for grandparents. We especially like to play family games on New Year's Eve - fun for all!
There's never time to play ALL the games we're prepared to play - we just self-organize around whichever ones people want to play. By having the round robin, people can choose. Those who want to play Magic, for example, can for one 30 minute round, and still be available to play other games during the night with people who don't play Magic. If you've ever been to an Open Space Conference, that's basically how we organize it. Half hour time slots are rows of the matrix, Rooms with game selections are columns of the matrix. Kids get to choose who they'll play what against in each time slot, making sure that they play at least 1 game with each person there (works for 8 people). After the kids have chosen, which includes committing adults in different time slots and games, then the adults fill in the empty slots. Don't worry if a game takes less than 30 minutes - time to play another quick version, or refill a drink. This variety and mixing gets our kids asking for game nights with the family and friends.
Computer games we love to play include:
Zoombini, and all of the Dr. Brain's (e.g. see how many puzzles you can do in 20 - 30 minutes)
Jigsaw (Bernie notes: this online Jigsaw puzzle site allows you - if you join, for free - to upload your own photos and make puzzles out of them. All puzzles on this site can be made more or less difficult, changing the size and number of pieces. Very cool.)
Board games we love include:
Apples to Apples (great for all ages 11 and up) (there are sets allowing you to extend the age range downward to 7)
Loaded Questions (GREAT fun, especially for friends and family you don't necessarily see often - perfect for holidays)
Cranium (fun to see who becomes the resident actor, singer, artist, or factoid expert!)
Pictionary
Upwords
Tangrams
Elferraus (German game by Ravensburger, building up and down sequence with 4 suits)
Hot Seat (like loaded questions, esp good for teenagers)
Jenga Truth or Dare (like Jenga tower of wooden sticks, but each one has a truth or dare challenge - good for teenagers)
Old Standby Favorites:
Charades
Card games/activities:
Crazy Uno (see instructions in the Deep Fun weblog - or just google search for them)
RummiCube
Sequence (my husband and I have played this at least once a day, for 2 years now!) - see below for rules variations
House of Cards (see how many cards you can add to the house of cards in 5 minutes, without making it fall)
Fluxx (rules change every hand!)
Bali (like double solitaire, but with letters building up words)
Magic (for those who know how to play)
Labels: family, games, Party Game
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