We think whiling away long summer days is best done outside when possible: swimming, playing ball, gardening, in the wheat field, catching fireflies. Sometimes, though, the Kansas wind or rain or scorching heat get the best of us, and indoor play rules.
Yes, we could watch movies. And we do.
Yes, we have a Wii
Low-tech boredom busters still rule at our house, and family card games rank right at the top. Here are some of our favorites.
1. UNO
2. Phase 10
3. Skip Bo
4. Crazy 8s – Played with a regular deck, as taught by my grandpa. Some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around grandpa knock, knock, knocking because he had only one card left!
5. Go Fish
6. Concentration – Played like Memory
7. War 
8. Slap Jack
9. Old Maid
10. Snap
What games do you play with your family? Any of these bring back memories?
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We play a lot of Phase 10 & UNO. In fact, whenever Ty’s granny is over, we almost always end up in a game of UNO. The kids think it’s the best thing ever.
I used to play war all the time with my cousins! Those would take forever. Have you ever played Spoons? That’s the one that can get a little violent:)
Card games were a big part of growing up for me. I love the interaction.
I just first saw a game of spoons a couple of months ago. Wild!
Ok, I must admit I’m not good at playing games with our kids yet. It’s all me – I must build up my patience:)
You’ll get there. It’s more fun the older they get!
When I was a kid, particularly on family vacations, we played a lot of Gin. These days I don’t think I even own a regular deck of cards, but lately Monopoly Deal has gotten a LOT of play around here.
I loved to play liverpool rummy as a child. It’s a game that you can spend all day playing. There are lots of back and forths and all the drama of a do or die final round.
UNO is still my fave. We have the little kids version (maybe Little People?) and I was shocked when Lydia was old enough to play–she must have been less than 2! (Maybe my mom pride is exaggerating but she was YOUNG!)
My family loves cards–I remember my grandmother teaching me how to play Gin Rummy when I was less than 8…
I remember when our oldest was born. We were loving the baby stage, but would also fantasize about the day when we could “play games together.” Wow, that day came fast!
We never really played many card games growing up, but my husbands family LOVES to play Rook and 7up as well as many home card games!
When we are playing with the littles, it is almost always UNO or Animal/Alphabet Go Fish. When we are spending time with my family, Hearts is the go-to game. When we are spending time with my husband’s family, Rook is a must.
Quiddler! Best card game ever. It is SO addicting! And it’s fun, because it is a letter/word game rather than a number game, like so many other card games are.
Never heard of Quiddler!
I have happy memories of playing double solitare with my mom. We nick-named it “bloody knuckles” because we got so serious about it and often banged our knuckles together trying to get our cards into the piles at the top.
Oh we ADORE games in this house! My husband and I are die-hard card lovers… we can play Euchre, Cribbage, Spades, Hearts, Sheephead, etc for HOURS. (Don’t even ask how many Cribbage games we played when we lost power for six days because of a hurricane…) Our kids are too little for those yet, so we stick to Uno, Go Fish, Old Maid, Monopoly Deal, and a whole mess of board games. We play a family game together at least six nights out of seven so it’s nice to have a variety! That’s a great list you came up with!
And yet ANOTHER reason you should move to Kansas! We need some adult card partners at our house.
Our family loves playing Nertz (or Nerts). We only have “big” kids home and it’s a blast to gather around the kitchen table with our packs of playing cards. Love it!
As children, my siblings and I also played cards together, and we really enjoyed playing with our cousins as well. With our cousins we played giant games of Uno that utilized two decks. We also played Old Maid with my grandmother.
I really get what you’re saying about it sometimes being too HOT to play outdoors for long. I recall one summer vacation that my parents ran to the store and bought bubbles/blowers and decks of cards because it was well over 100 and it was too hot to play sports or hike for very long. If we weren’t at the beach, we were resting and playing games. It was a memorable trip!
We don’t play enough cards but we do play some Yahtzee. Good for math skills:-)
Oh, I love board and card games! Fill or Bust is a favorite of my hubby’s family (and mine now too!). My kids are still young (5 and almost 3) so we play a lot of candy land, memory, sequence for kids, and trouble. I am looking forward to when they are older and we can play other fun games like life, monopoly, sorry, card games, etc.
Love it! We don’t have a Wii so our kids are forced to play board and card games with us. We like Uno the best
I love Uno! And my friend & were just War….she’s trying to teach her 8 year old that game, to help her get faster at picking the higher numbers.
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve played all of these except the last one, but I’ll be looking into that one. I think some of my younger ones have missed out on some of these, so we need to have a couple of card game nights.
We play a lot of SCUM (you can find the rules here: http://www.brucegourley.com/scumparty/rules.htm). It’s a fun game with almost any number of people and it can go for as long as you want. We actually just played it last night with some friends!
One of my grandmothers taught me gin rummy when I was a kid. It’s come in handy in many boring situations (like labor, for instance!).
Our family favorites now are Dutch Blitz, Monopoly Deal and Pictureka. My husband designs board games so someone is playing a game pretty much every day.
Labor? Boring???
We love to play Uno! Plus there are a ton of variations…dirty Uno, speed Uno….
Visiting from WFMW
Our all-time favorite card game is called Dutch Blitz. It is a BLAST!!
Oh, I played that one with my grandparents! Wonder if I’d remember how…
Skip-Bo is such a classic, too! LOVE IT!
Oh my ~ the number of times I play SkipBo in a week!!! I seriously can’t count. For a while we were non-stop with Apples to Apples Junior, which I’d highly recommend – fun for the whole family. I use the cards for other homeschooling activities too (alphabetizing, making funny stories, sorting by nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). We play all kinds of games, Rummy Cubes (Rummy-O), Scrabble and Chess are probably tops for the non-card varieties. Never tried Phase 10, but I’ve been curious about it. I must grab that one for my son’s 8th birthday this month… Thanks Amy!!
I’ve never played Apples to Apples. Maybe that needs to go on the next birthday/Christmas list for the kids?
It’s a great one, Amy, you won’t be disappointed. It won the “toy of the year award” from Family Fun magazine. You can check it out at http://www.otb-games.com.
~Trina
Glad you asked! We like to play Shanghi, but our all-time favorite game is Dutch Blitz. Once you try it, you’ll be hooked! It gets very competetive in our house.
A favorite for our family is 5 Crowns – it’s like rummy with 5 suits and rotating wilds. Whenever we get together as a family, it’s a sure thing that those cards are coming out at some point during the day.
Never heard of 5 Crowns. Sounds like fun!