You might think that playing board games with your children is just about having fun. If so, you will probably be pleasantly surprised to learn that you can reinforce educational concepts as well as teach your child about numbers, letters, spelling, and math skills along the way. In addition, children learn a lot about good sportsmanship and self-control when they have to deal with losing a game. Here are examples of just 5 family board games that can challenge the mind as well as promote family bonding.

Boggle

Boggle is a word game where players try to find words in the letter sequences contained in a letter grid. Points are awarded depending upon the length of the word and other factors. If two players have the same word, that word is “out” and cannot be used for points.

Boggle is a great game to play with children of all ages. Younger children may not be able to create words, but they can certainly recognize letters. As soon as children are able to read and spell, they may be able to use the game to work on word recognition and spelling. In addition, this is a clever way to encourage children with poor spelling skills to work on improving their spelling.

Scrabble

When most people think of an educational board game, Scrabble is probably one of the first to come to mind. Scrabble was invented during the Great Depression by an out of work architect. Since then, different versions of the game have been developed geared towards different age groups. Younger children may want to play Scrabble Jr.; adults may want to play the original version.

During a Scrabble game, players pick out a certain number of tiles. Using these tiles, players try to make words on the board in order to get points. Players pick out more tiles and create more words until one player has used up all of his or her tiles or when no more words can be formed from the letter combinations available.

Scrabble is a great way to work on vocabulary as well as spelling.

Parcheesi

This game is based upon an Indian game called Cross and Circle. Players roll dice and move tokens around the board in order to get to “home base”. During the game, they can capture the tokens of other players or block the movements of other players. The winner is the player who gets all his tokens to home base first. This game teaches children critical thinking skills as well as encouraging counting skills in younger children. One of the best things about the game is that it gives children a chance to practice good sportsmanship skills too.

Chutes and Ladders

Although this is a game for younger children, it does have educational value. Chutes and Ladders, also called Snakes and Ladders, originally came from India. Today, the game is popular around the world and is a great way for youngsters to learn their numbers as well as improve their counting skills. During Chutes and Ladders, players roll a die and move their token through the playing board. If a player lands on a space with a ladder, they can go up the board. If a player lands on a chute, the token goes down the chute to a lower numbered space. The winner is the person who reaches the last space of the game first.

Dominoes

Domino games are played around the world. Many different variations of the game can be played depending upon the age of the players or their attention span. However, most Domino games help children to increase their math skills as well as critical reasoning skills. During the games, players pick a certain number of domino tiles. They then match the numbered tiles to tiles placed on the game board. The winner is the person who runs out of tiles first.