25 Family Game Night Ideas

The family that plays together stays together. We've all heard that, right? (We've also heard that the family that prays together stays together. Equally catchy, every bit as true, but not my topic of focus in today's post.)

There are few things I love more than playing with our family. I love going to parks in the summer and watching Cameron chase the kids up, over, and under all the equipment in crazy games of tag. I love swinging with them and going down slides. I love pulling out board games to play together. Special bonding happens in these moments--it's the stuff that happy family memories are made of.

But I've also noticed that if we don't schedule it, it won't happen. Too many other things can crowd our calendar and trump just having fun together. We try to keep one night each weekend set aside for Family Fun Night. Sometimes we'll just watch a movie, but it's often more fun when we play. Here are some ideas we've tried and loved:

25 Weeks of Family Fun

1. Play sardines--you know, hide-and-seek where everyone tries to find the hider and when you find them you stay there till everyone is crammed in one little spot together!

2. Crab soccer--a little game of kick ball where everyone does the crab walk

3. Keep away--one person in the middle tries to get the ball while everyone else throws it back and forth to each other.

4. What time is it Mr. Fox?--Someone is chosen to be Mr. Fox and everyone else calls out, "What time is it Mr. Fox?" Mr. Fox responds by saying "3 o'clock" or "7 o'clock" or "10 o'clock" and everyone takes that many steps. When everyone is close, Mr. Fox responds by saying, "It's dinnertime!" and tries to tag someone to be the next Mr. Fox.

5. Water gun fight!

6. Indoor snowball fight--fill a laundry hamper full of folded sock balls and have an indoor snowball fight!

7. Flour fight--fill knee-high nylons with flour and tie them off, then go out in your backyard and have a free for all! (You don't need many flour bombs because each can be used over and over. And when you're done you can store them for another time. This makes for messy laundry but great pictures!)

8. Basement mini golf--set up a mini golf course in your basement.

9. Relay race--we've been known to set up relay races in our basement when it's too cold to do it outside, and it's every bit as fun.

10.Sharks and minnows

11. Marco Polo--one person is blindfolded and calls out "Marco" and everyone responds with "Polo". "Marco" tries to catch someone to be the next "Marco". This works great in the yard but sometimes in the winter we clear a room and play it inside and it's great.

12. Charades

13. Bake cookies together

14. Have a Disney sing-a-long (or whatever other songs you like)

15. Pudding painting--give each person a cup of pudding, a plate, some utensils, and whatever decorations you want and let each person paint something on their plate

16. Basement bowling--set up a pyramid with cans or even TP rolls and go bowling

17. Make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, frosting, and whatever else you have on hand

18. Play a board game.

19. Take a picnic to a park--or sit on your floor with a picnic blanket and watch a movie

20. Dodge ball

21. Build a blanket fort and read books together

22. Build pyramids or other structures with marshmallows and toothpicks

23. Put together a puzzle.

24. Hide and seek

25. Have a play dough sculpture contest--make some play dough and have a sculpture contest!