20 Fabulous Fun Family Game Night Ideas

Old-fashioned game nights aren’t getting really old, and it’s not always possible to hang out at expensive restaurants or shopping malls for fun. If you’re thinking of inviting your family for a fun game night and have kids lying around the house, you can get the whole gang together.

There are many family night activity ideas that you can take serious advantage of, and there are zero to minimal costs involved when setting up. Some of these are free, while others may need a table and a few basic materials. Have fun!

Benefits of Family Game Night

Thinking about how family night ideas with toddlers and playing games with them bring benefits? Family game nights foster communication, emotional skills and have various cognitive advantages without a doubt. Here’s a list of the following benefits:

1. Teaches Your Kids Important Life Skills

Every game has a purpose. Chess teaches players how to think before acting, monopoly is business-oriented, and Ludo is a luck game. Games that involve taking turns make kids learn about patience, how to wait, and more. Players have to read and follow directions which means children master how to pay focus and attention while playing them.

2. Connects Everyone Emotionally and Bonds Them

Sitting down at the table together, spending time chatting, and having fun playing games – leads to natural bonding. If your kids have been feeling distant or left out of the loop, hosting family game nights is a great way to include them.

3. Teaches Them How to Win and Lose

Games have a competitive element to them, and sometimes players get carried away. When you play games where a player loses, they learn good sportsmanship. Developing a healthy sense of competition, and not trying to cheat their way into winning is important. This translates to dealing with matters later in life too. Kids learn how to cope with their wins and losses in healthier ways.

4. Make Good Memories

Not everybody stays young forever, and life moves on. However, when there’s still time, family game nights can help make great memories. When your kids look back as they grow older, they’re going to cherish them. Additionally, when family members are far apart, looking back on these moments helps rekindle nostalgia. So that the next time you play, you’re all sure to have even more fun.

5. Teaches Communication Skills and Collaboration

Family game nights can be great times since they serve as breeding grounds for transparent communication. Kids are likely to share their true feelings and thoughts when they’re engaged in these games and unwind steadily. They’re a great way to loosen up, relax, and get into the moment as well. For siblings who don’t talk to each other, you’ll notice they start to open up and talk more when they’re busy having fun at the table.

Fun Game Night Ideas the Whole Family Will Love

Are you on the quest for fun family night ideas at home? Look no further because our list of games will keep your whole family entertained for hours (including older members). Try them out and see how it goes.

1. Try Out a Movie Night

Pick a fun movie to watch together with your whole family. If you have young kids in the house and older teens, you can get playful with scarier flicks or something more adventurous.

2. Craft Your Own Pizza

Get some pizza dough ready and set the ingredients on the table. Invite your kids to come and decorate the pizzas with their favorite toppings. Everybody can get creative, and each pizza will come out unique.

When the pizzas are ready, you can sit down at the dinner table together and enjoy your meal!

3. Hide and Seek

Hide and Seek is a classic game that never gets old. If you have a huge backyard or live in a neighborhood surrounded by tall trees and scenery, this is a fun choice. Get some glow in the dark sticks and hand one out to everyone so you can keep playing it at night.

Because hide and seek in the dark is really fun!

4. Make Chalk Art

Grab a pair of colorful chalks and get your creative juices flowing. Chalk art is a creative activity that kids and parents of all ages enjoy.

You can make doodles on the road, draw your favorite cartoon characters, or even play a Pictionary game by telling your kids words aloud, which they have to draw on the pavement and represent visually.

5. Stargazing

This activity is ideal for late nights and may require a pair of binoculars. Take the kids out to the roof at around midnight, lie down, and stare together at the starry skies. If you notice any constellations, you can grab your telescope and teach your kids all about them.

When you do this activity again next time, ask your kids to spot or count the stars in the sky. It’ll keep them busy!

6. Paper Planes

Pass out a few sheets of letter-sized paper and teach the kids the basics of aerodynamics. They’ll have a fun time building paper planes, and once they’re done, you can ask to fly them away. If you have a nice stretch in the house or enough room, you can make multiple paper airplanes and watch them fly around. It’s a lot of fun!

7. Taboo

Taboo is a card game where players guess what the word is without saying it. You can buy it online, and the rules are very simple. There are clues hidden within and lots of diversions along the way. A sand timer and scorecard are included with the decks.

For this game, you will need at least four or more players. A special game-changer die lets players mix things up and add another level of challenge. You can use the sand timer for racing around the clock, and the goal is to guess the words correctly without getting shut out by the squeaker.

8. Give Karaoke a Try

If you’ve got a karaoke box in the house, it’s time to put it to good use. Dance parties are also another fun idea if your family is up for it. Use decorations and party hats to make the event lively!

Kids love to move around, and these dance parties are a great way to fit in some exercise for adults. You can even make a playlist of your favorite songs and play it on your home theatre systems at night! However, remember that karaoke involves singing and if everyone’s not comfortable with that, go for a dance party theme instead.

9. Play Board Games

There are a wide variety of board games you can play together with your family. From chess, ludo, sudoku, and even Monopoly, they are a great way to bring everyone to the table and have a fun time. Turn-based board games tend to do very well among kids, while adults and older teens prefer titles with a strategy and thought elements.

10. Indoor Bowling

You can get skittles, bowling balls and set up your very own indoor bowling space at home. The kids will love it, and you don’t have to go to a mall to enjoy the game. If you have air-conditioning indoors and some custom-LED lighting, you can throw an indoor bowling ball party too during late nights.

11. Table Tennis

For kids who are way too energetic and want to move around, playing table tennis is a great move. All you need is a table, ping pong balls, and table tennis rackets.

12. The Word Game

The Word Game involves starting with a letter (for example, ‘A’) and saying a word. If you start with A, you could say Apple. The next player has to follow up with ‘E’ and say a word that begins with it. Eggs, in this case. And so on.

However, the catch is, you cannot repeat the same word twice or else you lose. This is a great game for boosting vocabulary and comprehension skills while having fun at the same time.

13. Tic Tac Toe

Out of fun family game night ideas? Get a piece of paper, some pens, and start playing Tic Tac Toe. It’s one of those games that take just a few minutes to play. Great for killing boredom and distracting yourself.

14. Hangman

This is a classic game played by most families, and it never gets old. One player thinks of a word, and the other player guesses what they’re thinking. If they guess right, the hangman is served. If it’s a wrong guess, a dash is added to the hangman. Multiple dashes end up finishing the hangman drawing, and when that’s done, it’s game over. You can add an extra layer of challenge by setting a time limit for guessing the words correctly.

15. Guess the Lyrics

This is a fun game where you begin a song, pause it, and players have to finish it. They can guess the lyrics, but things could take a wild turn when they get creative. There are no hard and fast rules for this.

16. Selfie Hot Potato

A creative game where you point the phone camera towards you and set the timer. Players pass around your phone, and if you happen to get captured in the frame while holding it, you have a fun selfie taken. Otherwise, players get to interpret how you look while they’re pointing the phone at you.

17. Video Games

If you have a PS2, Xbox 360 or a next-gen console lying around the house, you can boot it up and start playing with the kids. There are fun games like Tekken, FIFA, and various multiplayer games where two or more players can join.

18. Indoor Hopscotch

Draw out a set of squares on the floor and number them. Tell your kids to hop from one to the next and circle back. You can go crazy with the style and pattern of this game since you have more room in the house.

Whoever manages to hop and not fall off the squares when coming around wins. It’s a fairly simple indoor game with not much of a learning curve too.

19. Crazy Face

Put shaving cream on your face and give your kids cotton balls. Ask them to throw them at you and try to cover it up. Whoever manages to get in the most cotton balls and get them to stick wins. This is a risky game since it involves being willing to put cream on your face, but it’s fun if you don’t mind that.

20. Storytelling Games

There are sentence games where you can start with a sentence and ask others to finish the story. Other variations of storytelling include profiling a character and making a story around it. If you don’t want to try out storytelling games, you could resort to reading bedtime stories to your kids. The whole family could also share tales about their life or fun memories, whichever you prefer.

Hopefully, these games will keep your kids entertained and not leave them feeling bored. There are plenty of family game night ideas, but these are definitely the top ones on our list.

Also Read:

Family Get-Together Games
Importance of Family Relationships and How to Build
Simple and Achievable Family Goals You Must Have