my favorite board games

 How's everybody doing? The rain has returned a bit here in Vancouver, so getting out and about has been a bit tougher. It's been a great time to break out some board games. I absolutely love games! They're great learning tools (and the kids don't even know they're doing "work!") They're also a good way to bring families together. I've compiled a list of just a few of my favourite games below. They're organized by general age, but I play a lot of these games (even the middle-school ones) with my own kids, so the ages are just a suggestion. And, since this is a speech pathology blog, I decided to add in a few things the kids can learn while playing each game. Feel free to chime in with your own in the comments! And happy playing. :)
[No affiliate links, mostly because I'm a blogging novice!]

preschool/kindergarten

​Pop Up Pirate
I have yet to meet a Speech Pathologist who does not own this game. And they aren't easy to find anymore!! This game is an instant winner - the anticipation of that pirate flying into the air is just too much! Nevermind the fact that the reason he's flying into the air is because we're stabbing him with swords...what were the game makers thinking!? Well, they must have been onto something, because this one is a hit. It's fast, it's exciting, and it can be used for so many learning opportunities! Sometimes we just use it as a reinforcer (ie: practice your skill and then take a turn), but it can be used for so much more! Here are just a few of many ideas: 

• Colors - okay, it IS a game with weapons, but those weapons come in 4 different colours, perfect for teaching your littlest ones to identify colours.
• Turn taking - the turns in this game are so fast and simple that it's a great starter for kids who have trouble relinquishing control long enough to give another person a turn
• Expanding sentences - Kids can practice using full sentences to request (I want a blue sword) or to give instructions (Put a red sword in) or even to tell what happened (The pirate popped!)
• Speech sounds - You can use this for the /p/ sound obviously (pirate, pop, etc), but I also sometimes use it for /k/ if I call the swords "keys." ...It also makes the game slightly less violent!

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Feed The Woozle
This game has it all! Gross food, tongue twisters, silly movement, a monster. Seriously, what's not to like! The turns in this game can be quite complex if you play the full version, but it's often motivating enough that even young kids will get through it. If not, however, it's easily adaptable. Just cut off a few steps in the turn and voila! the kids are still able to play. In this game, you take turns rolling the dice to see how much food you get to feed the Woozle (a little monster guy who waits patiently a few steps away). Then comes the fun part, you get to choose which foods you'll put on the spoon. Will it be the Fried Sock? Soggy Meatball? Bathwater Soda? Place the foods on your spoon and then spin the wheel to see how you'll move to the Woozle. You might have to spin, walk backwards, Hoola dance, or even do the dreaded bunny hop! (I drop them every time on this turn!) Do your movement, feed the Woozle, and then your turn is done. With so many steps in the turn, this game incorporates a grand slam of skills to practice. Here are just a few:

• ​Social Skills - For the kids who are waiting their turn, I'll often encourage them to cheer their friends on. This builds social closeness, but also serves another purpose of keeping their attention on the game! With such long turns, sometimes kids can begin to investigate that other toy they noticed out of the corner of their eye or try to reach and grab parts of the game the other player is trying to use. Cheering gives them a task to do in their "downtime."
• Fine motor and gross motor skills - Putting the foods on the spoon and walking in the silly way to the woozle gives lots of opportunity to practice coordination.
• Language skills - Describe the gross foods you're feeding the woozle. You can make comments about how yucky they are or even talk about what they might taste like! You can bridge to other activities about foods they like or don't like.
• Self Regulation - Sometimes, while you're hopping or "going crazy" on your way to feed the woozle, the foods fall of the spoon. Depending on your child's social emotional abilities, you may just let them pick up the food and carry on (I often do! Especially for my preschoolers.) But if you'd like to work on moving through feelings of disappointment or practicing calming strategies, this can be a fun way to incorporate it. You can always model first, if you drop your food. You could say, "Oh dear! I was really hoping to feed the Woozle, but my food fell. I feel really disappointed." Really show that, in your face. But then you can show ways to move on. "I'm disappointed, but I know I'll get another try next time. I think I can wait. I'll be okay."
• Speech sounds - There are so many different sounds to practice in this game. I often use it to practice s-blends because of the spoon and the spinner, and many of the foods have s-blends in them too. But there is a whole host of other sounds and word shapes to practice.

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​Pengoloo
I love this game. It's cute and simple and made of wood. I received this game as a gift over a decade ago, and it's still going strong! In this game, 12 penguins shelter different coloured eggs (2 of each color). On your turn, you roll the dice, which will turn up 2 colors. You can look under 2 penguins to find the eggs that match those colors. With such a simple game, you'd be amazed how well this game captures kids' attention! Here are a few things you can practice with this game:

• Colors - you have a bit more to add on from your Pop Up Pirate practice too!
• Counting - you have to count how many penguins you look under. But if you really want to incorporate counting, you can count "just to make sure all the pieces are there." I often have the kids count the penguins out of the box to make sure I haven't lost any.
• Self Regulation - It is SO HARD to not look under more than two penguins! Especially if you didn't find a single color you were looking for. This is a fun, low-risk way to practice working through that.
• Turn taking - The turns here are longer than in Pop Up Pirate, but still fairly short, so it's a good game to introduce early.

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Spot It
This is a great little game for all ages! And it's one that kids can actually win without adults "helping." Or maybe I'm just not very good at this game. :) It's a bit like if I Spy and War had a baby. The idea is that each player has a deck of circular cards with an array of pictures on them. You each turn over one card at the same time. Whoever finds the picture that is the same on both cards gets to keep them. It's that simple! But roaringly fun. It also builds some key skills:

• Visual Attention - You really do need to look through all the pictures carefully to find the ones that match. If you aren't paying attention, you'll lose.
• Word Retrieval - In the version I play, you have to call out the match *before* you point or grab the cards. So not only do you need to be able to find the match quickly, you also need to bring up their label quickly.
• Self Regulation - As with any game, sometimes this one can bring up some sore losers. It's okay to take those moments to work through the feelings!

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Lemonade Shake-Up
I found this game when a fellow SLP friend of mine acquired it (thanks Carla!) and I have been loving it ever since. In this game you roll dice to make different flavours of lemonade to sell to your customers. Each time you make a successful sale, you get some coins to put in a pretend jar. If the jar gets filled, you win. But if you don't deliver the right flavours of lemonade, you lose. I have to say, we have rarely won this game!! Lemonade Shakeup is put out by Peaceable Kingdom, which might be my favourite game company ever. They make cooperative games, which I love. This game works on:

• Matching - You have to match your rolls to the flavors of lemonade
• Complex turn taking - There is a lot to do on one turn!
• Counting - You need to count how many times you roll, how many of each ingredient you need to roll, and how much money you make (if you've rolled successfully!) You can also do some more complex math, like "How much money do we need to finish filling the jar?"
• Speech sounds - You can use this for /l/ sounds, as there are lots of Lemons and Limes! 

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Good ol' fashioned Memory Match!
I love playing memory. I even have memories (hah!) of playing it as a kid and loving it. It's such a simple and great game and you can use almost any cards with it - even make your own! That way you can make sure to include your child's interests. It works on so many great skills too:

• Memory - of course! You have to remember where the cards are so you can be a more successful matcher
• Attention - Remember to watch on your opponent's turn too! Because then you can see what they reveal as well.
• Any skill you are working on! - You can make the cards have the speech sound you're working on, or make them verbs, or even pictures you need to describe each time you turn over a card.

early elementary

Guess Who?
This game is another classic. And it's another one that was a favorite of mine as a child. Ask questions to be the first to guess your opponents secret person! There are so many great versions of this game coming out these days (with more women and people of color, thank goodness! The classic version only has 5 women and 0 people of color.) Some of the new versions are even aliens or animals. This game is great for:

• Turn taking - Once again, short turns. And, because this game requires you to answer questions when it's your opponents turn, you still get to be an active participant.
• Guessing - Especially for kids who don't like to guess until they know the exactly right answer, we can talk about making a "smart guess." You don't have to guess all willy-nilly or make a "wacky guess." You can take what you've heard and what you know and make a guess based on that. Then, you check! If your guess is wrong, just try again. The stakes are low!
• Asking questions - I use this game a lot to work on question format. For example, the "does" comes first in questions (ie: DOES yours have... instead of Yours DOES have...)
• Describing and Same/Different - You really need to think about what's different between the people you're looking at. Because if all of your people have black hair and you ask, "Does your person have black hair," that's not really going to give you any more information on who to guess. And sometimes you can switch it around and practice describing instead of asking questions. So on your turn you'd give a descriptor of your own person, like "My person has glasses."

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Race to the Treasure
Yet another Peaceable Kingdom game. Did I mention how much I love these guys?? Your object is to get to the treasure before the evil ogre does. On your turn, you pick up a tile. If it's a path, you get to add it on the board to make your way to the treasure. If it's an ogre, you add him to his own path. If you get too many ogres before you reach the treasure, you lose! I mainly use this game for reinforcement and fun in sessions, but my kids love it at home too. They're learning:

• Spatial awareness - placing the path cards in the right direction to get to the treasure fastest
• Cooperation - Because this is another cooperative game, kids get to discuss among themselves the best way to move to the treasure. They can give ideas and need to practice being flexible if their idea isn't the one used.
• Imagination - Spoiler alert: there isn't actually any treasure. It's a picture of a sealed bag. You might think this makes the game less interesting for kids, but you are wrong! This way, the kids can imagine any. thing. they. want. We sometimes have whole conversations describing what we "find" in the treasure bag. So much rich language!
• Even early graphing - Before starting game play, you need to roll dice to tell you where to place the special keys you need to unlock the treasure. The dice correspond to the X and Y axes of the board, so you have to know a bit about that to be able to put the keys in the right spots.

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Caves and Claws
I can't even remember how I acquired this game. It may have been a random Value Village purchase. (So many great games are!) But, however it came into my life, it is one of my favourites. It's another one that involves placing map tiles onto a board. But in this game, you and the other players work together to move around the map and find different treasures. But watch out for the obstacles!! They can really get you into a sticky situation. This is another cooperative game, so it works on that skill, but also many others:

• Problem solving - If you get stuck in a corner, you need to decide which of your tools to use to get you out. You can only use each tool once, so there's definitely some strategy involved!
• Emotional regulation - This game offers the perfect opportunity to talk about regulating tools, because the game is based on finding the right tool for a given sticky situation too! You can draw a parallel between using the crow-bar to get past the fallen rocks and using deep breaths to get past a big feeling. Life is full of obstacles, thank goodness we have all the right tools for moving through them.
• Describing - You can use this game to practice describing. When someone gets a treasure, before they show it to the others, they can describe it and have the others guess which on they've found. Use the cards that come with the game, or create your own "treasures" to find!
• Speech sounds - Since you can use whatever cards you want as the "treasures," that means you can also make cards that use your child's target sound or word shape.

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Hedbanz
Just like with Pop Up Pirate, I don't think I've ever met an SLP that didn't have Hedbanz. It's pretty much the ultimate language game. Not to mention super fun and silly! Put a card on your forehead where you can't see it. Then ask your opponent questions about the card and make a guess about what it might be. Kids can learn:

• Describing skills
• Question asking skills
• Categorizing
• Vocabulary
• Social skills 

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Later Elementary/Middle school

​Labarynth
This game is so, so fun. When my kids ask to play this game, I never roll my eyes - it's fun for adults too! In this game, you have to move your character through a maze to find 5 treasures. Sounds a bit like caves and claws, I know. But, in this game, the maze MOVES. Each turn, you have to push a tile back into the board, moving a whole row one tile over. So, you can be quite aggressive with blocking your opponent! With this game, you can practice:

• Executive functioning - Sometimes you need to think a few moves into the future. You have to picture your goal and work backwards from there.
• Emotional regulation when your opponent intentionally blocks you!
• Describing - If you want to, you can take turns describing and guessing each other's treasures
• Narrative structure - I never thought to use the game this way, but my fantasy-novel loving kids always want to make up stories about the characters in the game, how they know each other, and why they're searching for certain objects. It certainly adds some spice to the game!

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Apples to Apples
If Hedbanz is the king of all language skill games, Apples to Apples is the queen. This game is a rockstar of language skills. I play it a bit differently than the regular instructions, mainly because I'm often just playing with 2 people (so there's no impartial judge). But, the way I play it also incorporates some more language skills. In this game, you are dealt 5 red noun cards. A green "adjective" card is turned over, and you are to pick the noun from your hand that best fits the adjective. Instead of passing your cards in face down to be judged, I play that you put your card in face up and you must describe why your noun fits with that adjective. Then the best description wins! Sometimes, you need to get really creative, which is why I love playing this way. For example, "A mitten is sticky....when it's covered in candy" or "A lion is peaceful...if it's sleeping." Playing this way, you can work on:

• Complex sentences
• Semantic relationships and vocabulary skills
• Categorization and describing
• Flexible thinking - Thinking about something in a different way

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5 Second Rule Jr.
This is a game of quick thinking and categorization. You get cards that tell you to think of 3 things in a certain category (ie: what are 3 green foods). Then you only have 5 seconds to think of an answer! This game can go really fast, so it's good to squeeze into short times. It's also pretty portable (because you can even play it without the actual game if you think of your own categories!) Skills it can be used for:

• Categorization
• Vocabulary
• Thinking quickly - especially if your kid is one who really likes to take a long time to come up with an answer! This is a good, fun way to practice "just spit[ting] it out," which, incidentally, is the game's tagline

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Blokus
This is a fantastic family game for older kids. It's colourful, fun, and reeeeally stressful if you play it by the rules!! With younger kids, I often adapt it to be more fun (you can even just use the coloured tiles to make cool mosaic shapes), but with older kids, it's fine to play it in its true form. This game has less of a language component, unless you incorporate one. It mainly targets:

• Spatial awareness
• Strategy/Executive Functioning
• Turn taking
• Emotional regulation - at least for me!!

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​CodeNames and Codenames Pictures
This is my new favorite board game. Fun for adults, but older kids can play too! (My 7 year old even plays a rule-loosened version of it.) In this game, you are presented with an array of random words (or pictures). Your teammate has to say one word to get you to guess as many of your team's "target words" as you can. But beware! If you say one of the other teams target words, they get the point! You won't understand unless you play, so go play it already! This game uses the following skills:

• Spatial awareness - no, really! Because you have to look at the "key" and match that to the array on the table to figure out which words to get your teammate to guess
• Semantic relationships - this game is *all* about semantic relationships and associations. Some of my favorite things!!
• Speech sounds - if you wanted to make a simpler version of this game to play with younger kids to target speech sounds, it would probably work! I haven't tried this, but I might soon!

I hope you get a chance to try one of these board games while holed up at home these days! Remember to try to support your local businesses while they've probably had to close their physical storefronts. If you can order your games locally, that's the best option!

Happy playing!

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