Board gaming as an educational resource. (Lots of pics)

Our family is HUGE on board gaming.  It is a part of our daily lives.  We started gaming in May and my husband and myself have over 120 game plays since then so far!  Our daughter also loves to play.  We started her off with Catan: Junior.  At first it was difficult for her to think about her moves ahead of time and grasp how she should play (she knew what to do but not how the best way to go about doing it was).  Since then her gaming background has grown.  Along with this her critical thinking and problem solving skills grew a LOT.  

What does she play? Olivia plays: Catan: Junior, Lord of the Ring (kids version by eagle games), Sleeping Queens, Carcassonne, Enchanted Forest, Hey! That's my fish, Snail pace race, Agricola (which is not a kid game), King of Tokyo, Ticket to Ride, Castle Panic, Forbidden Island, Dungeon!, and more I can't think of now.  She also loves trying to learn to play chess on her nook.  

We don't play your typical commercial board games (no monopoly, sorry, or trouble).  We like to play strategy games that make you think and plan ahead.  I plan on incorperating board gaming into our daughter's education and using it as an alternate educational resource. 

I just thought I would share if anyone was interested in game suggestions for kids let me know!  

Oh and on another note, I don't pay much attention to "manufacture suggested age" for the games.  Some of the games Our 4 1/2 year old plays are rated for 10 and up and she understands to play them just fine.  Sleeping Queens for example is rated for 8 and up but it is a SUPER easy card game to play for kids (even adults too). 

Catan: Junior

Carcassonne the Discovery (below)

Forbidden Island (below)

Agricola (below)

Dungeon!

And....King of Tokyo :) 

[KLove_Mom]

Agree... I actually took one of my 4 year old daughter's favorite games "Memory" (matching 2 cards), and made it a phonics game too. When we found a match we had to say what letter that word started with. When we found a "cheetah" we talked about the "ch" sound.

UNO is her other favorite... she loves to skip other people.

Quoting lucsch:

       I think any boardgames are useful for learning something, even if just social skills. LOL I tend to like traditional boardgames myself--and card games. It is amazing what you can do with a deck of cards. For young kids, just keeping track of all of the different rules and applying them, plus learning to think ahead and planning strategies for winning is enough of a educational challenge.

My favorite game is Phase 10...just because I think it is fun.

[terpmama]

Set is good too and there are multiple ways of playing

[gratefulgal]

I was checking out that ticket to ride game; my boys are HUGE train fanatics!! :) We love board games in this house, too!

[Leissaintexas]

I've never been a board game fan. I don't have a competitive bone in my body, so I've never seen the point. I think we might have a monopoly Jr around here somewhere, but I think its only been out of the box twice. Ds plays chess, but other than that, we're not big on games.