If you’re looking for a family activity this Memorial Day that will stimulate conversation, foster a spirit of cooperation, and teach family members how to win and lose gracefully, play a game together. Family-friendly games can promote a sense of unity and togetherness in a family. When choosing games to play, look for ones that are designed to be played by groups of people, have simple rules and are appropriate for all ages and skill levels.
Spoons
Spoons is a classic family game that incorporates cards and kitchen spoons. It’s an exciting game to play as it can get a little rowdy. To play, you need a deck of cards and a spoon for each player, minus one. All the players sit around a table and the spoons are placed in a line in the center of the table. Each player is dealt four cards to start. The dealer then picks up one card from the remaining deck and discards one card to the player on his left. When play reaches the player to the right of the dealer, he puts his discarded card in a pile to be used after the original deck is used up. The first person to get four cards of a kind takes a spoon from the center of the table. Others follow suit as soon as they notice a spoon has been taken. The player who is left without a spoon loses that round of the game. Rounds of Spoons can be played until one player is left. This player is the winner.
Hullabaloo
Put out by Cranium, Hullabaloo is a high-energy game that requires lots of physical movement. While the game is geared toward ages 4 and up, younger children are able to play with a little help from mom or dad. Hullabaloo comes with a talking console and 16 vinyl pads of assorted shapes and colors. The pads get placed on the floor and players listen to the talking console as an announcer gives instructions. Players are instructed to jump to a color, spin to a shape and more. When the console announcer says "Freeze" the players stop where they are. The announcer states the winning vinyl pad and instructs the player on that pad to do something silly, like a funky dance.
Twister
Twister is a simple game to play in theory, but if you can’t twist, turn and hold your balance, you may have trouble playing. To play Twister, a mat with a grid of colored circles is placed on the floor and players stand facing each other on opposite sides of the mat. Players then place one foot on a blue circle and one foot on a yellow circle and wait for the game to begin. To start the game, a designated spinner spins the Twister wheel. The wheel is divided up into combinations of colors and body parts. The space the spinner lands on provides the instructions for the spinner to read to the players. If the spinner lands on a right foot and red combination, the spinner would announce "Right foot red" and all players follow the instruction. When a person falls, they are out of the game. Play continues until there is one player left on the Twister mat. This player is the winner.
