What it is: A simple two-player math game to review “greater than/less than” number sentences (Does anyone else’s child have to stop every single time they draw a greater than/less than sign so they can turn it into an alligator?)

Best for: A young child learning math and an older sibling or parent

What you need: A printable number chart and a crayon or maker

How to play: Start with a number chart on the table in front of both players. (The printable charts I included have four versions that go up to 100, 120, 150, and 200.) Player 1 (who can be named Mom) silently chooses a number on the chart and says, “Guess my number.” Player 2 (whose name can be Ben) then guesses any number, saying, “Is it 25?” Say Mom’s number is 56. She would say, “It is greater than 25.” Ben would then be able to use his crayon or marker and cross off any number on the number chart he knows the answer isn’t (so 25 and everything less than 25). Ben then gets another guess. If he says, “Is it 73?” Mom says, “It is less than 73.” Then Ben gets to cross out all numbers 73 and higher. Play continues like this, with Ben guessing and getting closer and closer until he finally guesses Mom’s number. Then Ben gets a turn to think of a number and Mom gets a turn to guess.

If you’re playing competitively, you can say that the person who had the most un-crossed-out numbers when they finally guess the right number wins. You could also keep track of guesses and say the winner is the one who gets the answer in the least number of guesses.

It’s a simple game, but it can be a good way to work in number practice and reasoning, too. Make sure to give your child a turn both guessing and thinking of a number.

If you want to use the printable number chart again and again, laminate it and use a dry erase marker. Happy playing!

(For you older people playing, my husband informed me of a strategy called binary search that greatly increases your odds of winning when it’s your turn to guess. Basically, if you’re playing up to 100, you guess 50 first. If you’e told the number is less than 50, guess 25. If you’re told the number is more than 25, guess 37. Basically keep cutting the un-eliminated numbers in half and you’ll get it faster. Just be careful not to crush the confidence of the younger players you’re playing with.) 

What it is: A way to play pictionary that works best with specific categories, like idioms or, in this post, movie titles. It’s not as competitive as regular pictionary and takes a lot more creativity!

Best for: Older players (teens or above) because of the difficulty involved

What you need: 

• A wipe-off board and dry erase marker, a chalkboard and chalk, or a paper pad and marker; basically a surface to draw on that all players can see

How to play: Just like in regular pictionary, players take turns drawing silently, trying to get other players to guess a word or phrase.

In what I’ve dubbed “mixtionary,” it works better if players come up with their own ideas of what to draw and if you don’t have a timer. You might not even want to keep score. It’s just a fun way to see who can creatively get others to guess a word or phrase in a challenging way, because instead of drawing any picture, your challenge is to illustrate the individual sounds of the phrase, mixing pictures to put together the entire phrase.

So in this post, I’ll use movie titles as an example. (Also, mostly family/PG movie titles.) Can you guess this one?

If you need a hint, cows say MOO, and the picture of the lawn mower is pointing to the LAWN…

Mulan!

See how the pictures make up the whole phrase? Here’s another one:

In this example, you can see how letters can come into play. Considering how difficult this game can be, I recommend allowing letters (instead of in regular pictionary where letters are usually against the rules).

In this game, use a bubble letter, like the first E, to indicate that the letter should be pronounced individually, like “eee.” Use normal letters, like the “er,” to indicate that the letters should be read instead of pronounced individually, like the end of the word, oh, “Potter,” for instance.

Want another? (Excuse my sloppy drawing by the way; this is my go-time pictionary drawing style. No time for fancy pictures!)

I’m not going to give away that one… How about some more?

In this last example, notice how you can use more complex equations to dissect sounds. So you’ve got your first picture, then a little equation, a picture of the EARTH minus the H sound (leaving you with “urt”). Plus the last picture… Can you guess the movie title?

This one’s a little tricker. Remember, a bubble letter means you pronounce the letter, like “ess.” A regular letter means you read the sound the letter makes. Another point is that if there’s a plus sign or a minus sign, it indicates that those two sounds are part of the same word. But if there’s no plus or minus sign between pictures, that indicates a word break. So in the above example, since there’s no plus sign after the T, the first and second lines are separate words.

How about one more?

See how the game works? You can play with movie titles, book titles, maybe even idioms. Since you won’t be able to illustrate all movie titles this way, it’s best to let players think of their own, or if you have a big list (like my word generator provides) allow skipping until players find one they feel like they can illustrate.

OK, finally, to end, here’s one last hard one that, I admit, is a big stretch and maybe nigh unto impossible, because it’s kind of an obscure movie to begin with. Guess it correctly in the comments, or guess all of the previous pictures, and I’ll give you a free escape room kit from my site!

(Here’s your one clue. See how there’s no plus or minus signs? That means it’s three separate words.)

Variations: For more variations on the classic game of pictionary, try musical pictionary or pictionades. If you’re looking for lists of movies or other pictionary words, check out my printables page or the word generator.

Good luck, and happy playing!

What it is: A much more strategic version of tic-tac-toe I learned from Math with Bad Drawings (he’s got a great explanation of the game, too)

Best for: Two players

What you need:

• Paper
• Something to write with

How to play: OK, so we’re all familiar with tic-tac-toe, right? The normal 9-square grid?

Well, in ultimate tic-tac-toe, you’ve got a smaller grid within each of those 9 squares:

To win the game, you have to win three of the larger squares in a row, and to win a large square, you have to win three in a row in the smaller grid inside it.

Here’s how it works. Say X goes first:

Now, just like in normal tic-tac-toe, O gets to go. But O can’t just go anywhere. The smaller grid O must play in is determined by X’s move. So since X went in the bottom right corner within his small grid, O must go in the bottom right corner of the large grid:

So O goes, anywhere in this small grid he wants to:

Now you know where X has to go, right?

A few moves down, the game might look like this:

See what just happened in the far right middle square? X got three in a row! That means X wins that small grid, thus claiming that square in the large grid:

Then it’s O’s turn again (O is still sent to the small grid determined by X’s last move). Eventually someone will claim three small grids in a row, thus winning the whole game:

Nice job, X!

As you can imagine, there’s a lot of strategy involved. You’ve got to keep in mind where you’re sending your opponent, thinking several moves ahead.

One rule: If the player before you sends you to a grid that’s already been won, you get to go wherever you want. (So try not to send your opponent to an already-won grid!)

Another rule you’ll need to decide on your own will be what to do with smaller grids that result in a tie. You could either count them for 1) neither X nor O or 2) both X and O. Try both ways and let me know which one you like more!

Many thanks to Math with Bad Drawings for this fun and quite strategic game!

Printables: Here’s a free Ultimate Tic-tac-toe board you can use. Just download and print.

Variations: Aside from the normal tic-tac-toe, there’s also 3D triple-decker tic-tac-toe, and, my personal favorite, human tic-tac-toe. Who knew there were so many variations on tic-tac-toe out there?

Oh! Wait! I almost forgot! Many thanks also to my husband’s synesthesia, which helped me decide what colors to color the X and the O in the post artwork

What it is: A silly drawing game that was actually sent in from a reader! Thanks, Jennifer!

Best for: Three to eight players (and a great game for children)

What you need:

• Paper and pens or pencils. You could get fancy with crayons, markers, or colored pencils. You could also get fancy with a pre-made printable form, like the one I provide below

How to play: The game is pretty simple. A paper is divided into thirds and different players draw a monster head, body, and feet, creating a silly monster masterpiece (or monsterpiece) that everyone can laugh at, because the results always end up being funny.

The secret is folding the paper so the current artist can’t see what the previous artists drew. So, Lucy might draw a monster head, then fold over a third of the paper, hiding the head. She would pass the paper to Bryce, who would draw a monster body, then fold the paper over, hiding the body, and pass it to Susan, who would draw the feet. Then unfold the paper for the big reveal!

On the included printable, there are two monster drawing blanks to a page. The drawing space is divided into thirds; once you draw a monster head, fold the paper down until the top edge meets the first line, covering the head. Repeat with the other two sections. The small vertical marks on the horizontal lines tell you how wide to make the monster neck and waist, so the three sections fit together well.

I hope you and your family have some fun monster-drawing silliness with this game, just in time for Halloween!

Draw a Monster Printable

Presidents’ Day is coming up! I wanted to post a Presidents’ Day game this year so I did some research into the holiday, and it was a lot more complicated than I thought! Wikipedia has the full story if you’re interested, but basically it’s not really standardized who exactly we celebrate on Presidents’ Day. The holiday is officially George Washington’s birthday (even though the holiday never falls on his actual birthday…). Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is also in February so he is often celebrated on Presidents’ Day, too, but it is sometimes used as a day to celebrate all American presidents in general. The name varies from state to state. I had no idea! Did you? How does your state celebrate Presidents’ Day?

Well, before I did all that research, I made a version of Who am I? for Presidents’ Day (you can head over to that post for instructions). The Presidents’ Day version has cards with names of American presidents on them and, I admit, would be pretty dang challenging for most people. I’d probably be awful at it. But if you’re a U.S. History class or if you and your friends are history buffs, you’d probably be great at it!

Presidents’ Day “Who Am I?” game

But after doing my research on Wikipedia, I felt bad for not keeping with the roots of the holiday and celebrating George Washington (and Abraham Lincoln) in particular. So I made another game, a matching game.

At a recent birthday dinner for two of my friends, a third friend put this game together. She made a list of  little-known facts about each birthday girl and read them all out loud in no particular order. We all had to write down which friend we thought the fact was about. It was a lot of fun when we played that way, all sitting around the table at our restaurant and laughing as we got to know the birthday girls in new ways.

This Presidents’ Day version may not produce as many giggles, but it’ll definitely keep you thinking! I don’t think it will be easy. (It definitely wouldn’t be for me!) To play, print out the printable. Read the facts out loud to your group. An answer sheet is included for players to write their answers on. There’s also a key so you can read the correct answers at the end of the game. The player with the most right answers wins! I think this would be a great game to play in school as you’re learning about the presidents of the United States, especially Washington and Lincoln. There are 32 facts, 16 about each president. If some of them are too hard or if there are too many for your age group, just leave some off and have students make their own answer sheet.

Presidents’ Day game: Name that president

To complete your Presidents’ Day celebrations, don’t forget to check out my Presidents’ Day pictionary list.

Happy Presidents’ Day and happy playing!

What it is: A road trip game, one of those seek-and-find games that gives you something to do on long car trips.

Best for: A long car trip across state borders, for however many players you want (even one).

What you need: A list of all 50 states, or a piece of paper or some way to write the states you find down. I have a free printable below.

How to play: The game is pretty simple: as you’re on your road trip, look out the window at the cars you see. Find the state name on each license plate, and try to spot a license plate from every state. You can cross states off of a list you already have, write them down, or just keep a list in your memory. You can play competitively, with each person in the car playing against everyone else. The player with the most states crossed off at the end of the trip wins. You could create teams. Or you could play cooperatively as a whole car or bus together.

It’s a pretty ambitious goal, I’ll admit. (My list includes Alaska and Hawaii, so I think you really might have to do some traveling to cross every state off.) I think it would be cool to save this list for multiple car trips, especially if you have several coming up. At the start of the summer, for example, you could print off the list and plan to take it on every car trip you take that year. You could even do it over a lifetime. See how long it takes you to cross off every state!

Printables: Here’s a printable I made that lists each of the 50 U.S. states. You can use it when you’re playing the license plate search game to cross off the states you find.

Variations: If you’re looking for other road trip I-spy games, try the alphabet game or its object-only variation.

What it is: A good way to pass the time when you’re flying somewhere. Look for items on a list and cross them off when you see them.

Best for: One to 5 players.

What you need: A list of things to find in an airport! You could make your own, or I have some free printable ones below. Also a pen.

How to play: It’s easy! When you’re sitting in an airport waiting for your plane, or waiting in an extra long security line, or stuck somewhere with a longer-than-expected layover, pass the time by doing a little scavenger hunting. Make or obtain a list of common things you might see in an airport (the items could be as easy as an airplane or a person with a hat, for younger players; or much harder, like the Southwest Shamu plane). When you’re in the airport, keep your list and a pen handy and cross things off as you see them. First player to cross off all the items (or the player to cross off the most) wins!

Rules and Variations: This is a very adaptable game. It’s a great one-player or two-player game, and you can play competitively or cooperatively. You could even stretch out one game over a whole trip or multiple trips. If you want to play competitively, you probably want to set up some specific rules (when to start looking, when to stop looking, whether photographs of things count, etc.).

Printables: We’re flying this Thanksgiving for my sister’s wedding. (Incidentally, the airplane illustration above is in her wedding colors – I guess I have her color scheme on my brain after some fun clothes shopping for me, my husband, and our two kids.) In preparation, I made these scavenger hunts and I want to share them with you! Feel free to download and use. There are two lists: the first one is pretty easy, and the second one is harder. Just print, cut, and use whichever fits your needs! If you do use them, I’d love to hear any feedback on how they work. Happy flying!

Airport Scavenger Hunt

What it is: I Spy Bingo is a version of classic bingo. In classic bingo, everyone has a 5 x 5 grid of randomly placed numbers. Someone reads off a number at random, and players look for the number on their playing card and mark it off if they find it. Players try to get 5 marked-off squares in a row. First person to get 5 in a row (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) shouts out “Bingo!” and wins. In I Spy Bingo, instead of listening for numbers called out loud, you’re watching for things you might see in real life.

Best for: 1 to 6 players.

What you need: Everyone will need a game card. You can make your own or use my free printable ones! (see end of post). Everyone will also need a pen or something else to use to mark off squares (like candy, especially M&Ms, which are our favorites). You also need somewhere specific to play: in this case, a Halloween costume party, or the day at school when everyone comes dressed up, or trick-or-treating night…basically anywhere you can see lots of people in Halloween costumes.

How to play: Halloween costume I Spy Bingo is pretty simple. Everyone gets a 5 x 5 grid of squares. In each square, write a costume you think you might see someone wearing this Halloween. (My free printable cards already have costumes written out.) Once you’re at your party or school day or wherever you’re going to play, just keep a lookout at all of the cool Halloween costumes going by and cross off any costume you see on your card. First player to get 5 in a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) shouts “BOO!” (instead of “bingo”) and wins!

You can also play the blackout version – where you have to cross off all your squares, not just 5 in a row, to win. Other than that, you can set up your own rules however you’d like! Here are some suggestions.

On the printable cards I made below, some of the costumes might overlap (e.g., fairy and Disney character; if you saw someone dressed as Tinkerbell, that could count for both). But I say you can only use each individual costume to cross off one square on your card. However, it’s up to you if you want to use Tinkerbell to cross off fairy or Disney character, bringing in a slight element of strategy. But if you do see two or more Tinkerbells walking around on Halloween night (from what I can gather, it’s a pretty popular costume), you can cross off both. You might have to settle some disputes as you play (like whether Princess Leia counts as a Disney princess), but that’s all part of the fun.

You can set a time limit, or just make the game last the duration of the party. You can play at a costume party, at school, or Halloween night (especially if you’re the one stuck at home alone handing out the candy. Why not call up another friend at home and have them play, too? Text each other pictures of your finished card when you win). Play by yourself or with a small group; it’s a very adaptable game. You can even have prizes for the winner(s), like pre-purchased candy bars, or some sweet deal like winner gets all the Snickers bars of the Halloween candy haul. Make it fit your group and make it fun!

Variations: There are lots of variations to I Spy Bingo. In addition to holidays or holiday parties, you can play on a road trip, in the airport, at the mall while people watching… I have some other ideas I’m working on that I’m excited to post, so stay tuned!

Printables: To make your Halloween Bingo easy, here’s some free printables! The first one comes with 6 unique cards already filled out. (But even if you want to play with more than 6 people, it would probably work just fine as long as there’s enough variation in the costumes you all see). The second one is blank so you can fill in your own costumes. This would be a great way to play and encourage creativity. Just come up with some basic rules, especially if you’re playing with a lot of people, and let the fun begin!

Halloween Costume Bingo

Halloween Costume Bingo: blank cards

Happy Halloween! I hope you all enjoy!

Best for: One person or a smaller group, maybe during a time when you need to be quiet.

What you need: Everyone needs paper and a pen or pencil. Optional: colored pencils, crayons, markers, or other supplies for making your dream house pretty.

How to play: Really, it’s a simple activity. You just draw your dream house! And when you’re a kid (or an adult), you can let your imagination run wild, which is where the fun comes in. I thought the best way to show this activity would be an example, so imagine how happy I was when, during the move my family recently completed, I was going through a box of old memories and found this:

I wish I had dated it! My best guess is that I drew it when I was 7 or 8? But this is exactly what I’m talking about! Usually my sisters and I drew kind of a floor plan layout like this, and of course our houses were always ginormous and held all sorts of cool extras. Which seemed to mostly be themed rooms: a party room, a toy room, a ferris wheel room, a rock climbing room, a pet room, a maze room, a museum room, a candy room, of course…oh, and a manatee room. (My sisters and I were in love with manatees. We thought they were the coolest things ever.) There also has to be a mini airport, of course, and indoor swimming pool. Anyway, I’m so glad I found this priceless drawing. Maybe I can convince my husband to build this floor plan for us one day.

And as a bonus, here’s another, more recent example. I think I drew this shortly after my husband and I were married; I was babysitting some younger cousins and wanted to show them one of my favorite drawing activities. So, since I was older this one is of course more realistic…(uh, kind of…)

Notice I kept the indoor swimming pool (this time with a dolphin) and now have a private helicopter pad instead of a mini airport. And complete with home theater, exercise room, large kitchen, hot tob, play room, and star-gazing deck, this dream home is perfect. Oh, and slides to reach the lower levels. Who hasn’t wanted a house with slides at one point?

Anyway, this second drawing shows another way you can draw your dream home: as a cut-away side view instead of a bird’s-eye view. And you can use words to label rooms (like in the first drawing), or you can just draw (like in the second). Either way, whatever you want to draw, go for it! Draw your dream home. Adding as many details as possible is always fun.

Variations: We often played this with sidewalk chalk, too, except it was more of a “draw your dream room.” Each of us would take one large square of the driveway (the squares formed by the seams in the concrete) and pretend it was our room, drawing in beds, dressers, rugs, and usually bean bag chairs and lava lamps (things we always wanted but never had), all from a bird’s-eye view. Then you can play house in your new room. My husband also played a similar game in talking version called build a cabin in your mind.

Best for: A group of about 10.

What you need: You’ll need paper and pens for everyone to write with. The paper doesn’t need to be big; in fact, index cards would be perfect.

How to play: To start, pass around pens and cards to everyone in the circle. This is a great, easy game for groups because you don’t need a certain number of players and no one has to sit out; everyone can play right away. Once everyone has a card and pen, tell everyone to write a question that begins with “What if…” at the top of the card. For example, “What if people had platypuses for pets instead of dogs?”

These questions can be as serious or as silly as you want them to be. In our games, they usually end up both ridiculously silly and about people in the room, like “What if Joe wore only corduroy clothing all the time?” At any rate, don’t be afraid to let your creativity show!

Then collect all of the cards, shuffle them up, and deal them back out to everyone randomly. If someone gets their own card by chance, you can let them switch for another one.

Once everyone has a card with a question that they didn’t write, tell everyone to then write an answer to the question, starting with the word “Then…” Again, these can be as silly or as serious as you want. If you got the question “What if we all had platypuses for pets instead of dogs?” you might write: “Then we’d all have to live next to rivers and streams.” Or you might write “Then Lassie would have turned out a whole lot differently.” The point of the game is to be kind of silly, so don’t be afraid to. Also don’t worry if you think you’re not terribly witty (as I always do in games like this), because it really won’t matter in the end. You’ll still be funny even if you’re not witty. I love games like that.

Then for the last part of the game, everyone goes around the circle and reads their cards, but here’s the catch: you’ll answer each question with a mis-matched answer. So here’s how it works. Say Mike’s playing and he was holding the platypus question. He’d read the question out loud: “What if we all had platypuses for pets instead of dogs?” But then the person to the right of Mike, we’ll call her Kim, would read her answer for her question, which might be: “Then the world would be a much better place.” Then Kim would read the question on the card she’s holding, “What if there were a Chick-fil-A on every corner?” and the next person in the circle would respond with their answer to their question. You’d go all around the circle until you got back to Mike’s answer: “Then Lassie would have turned out a whole lot differently.”

Usually hearing a question with the wrong answer is pretty funny, either because it makes absolutely no sense or it’s surprisingly true. So as you go around the circle, you’ll all probably laugh and joke (especially if  some of the questions are about people in the room) and claim the questions. A lot of silliness, but a lot of fun, too. Then if you like it, play another round!

Variations: This game reminds me a lot of paper telephone, probably because both games invariably tend to be about people in the room in ridiculous situations. So silly. But so fun.

What it is: A funny variation of telephone, played on paper instead of out loud. It’s a great game for creative teens or adults and can be quite entertaining. It’s always been a favorite among my family and friends.

Best for: Group of about 6 to 10.

What you need: Each player will need a piece of paper and a pencil or pen to write/draw with.

How to play: First set up the game by sitting all of your players in a circle indoors. This game might be hard to play around a table because each player needs to keep their paper secret from their neighbors, so playing in a living room on couches and chairs works great.

Then hand out paper and writing utensils to all the players. Have everyone write his or her name in small print at the bottom right of the page.

Everyone starts by writing a sentence at the top of his or her paper. It can be something random, true, abstract, from a song lyric, or about someone in the room. Here are some examples:

• The kids all danced around the large oak tree.
• The dog chased the carefree butterflies to the end of the rainbow.
• If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, oh what a world it would be!
• Ted can’t find the right shoes to wear to prom.

Once everyone has a sentence at the top of his or her paper, everyone passes their paper to the player to their right.

Then everyone illustrates the sentence give to them with a small picture right underneath the sentence. So, for example, if Mary were given the sentence “The kids all danced around the large oak tree,” she might draw something like this:

Once everyone has finished drawing their sentences, everyone folds the top part of the paper over so it covers the first sentence, but not the picture. Then again, everyone passes their papers to the right.

Now everyone receives a paper with just a drawing visible, and everyone writes the sentence that presumably could have led to that picture (usually with some humor thrown in). For example, Bob, given the above picture, might write this sentence underneath: “Once there was a family of tree huggers.” Then everyone folds over their paper so only the last sentence is visible and passes the paper to the right.

And that’s basically how the game works. Everyone continues alternately writing sentences and drawing pictures, always covering up everything but the latest sentence or picture and passing to the right. Continue writing and drawing until you run out of room, or until everyone gets his or her paper back (that’s why you wrote names at the bottom at the beginning).

After everyone’s done writing and drawing, everyone unfolds the paper he or she has and begins to read and laugh at all the sentences and drawings, especially how in the world the first sentence turned into the last one. Then you can go around the circle one by one as everyone reads a paper out loud, or you can just pass them around so everyone can see the drawings clearly.

And then play another round!

Strategies: Really, the point of the game is to evoke laughter, so good strategies include being creative and off-the-wall with your sentences and pictures. Oh, and don’t worry, no artistic talent is required. It’s always kind of funny (or against the rules, depending on your viewpoint) when someone writes a sentence about a picture and throws in something that wasn’t there before, just to heighten the random factor. And when we play, most papers inevitably end up about people in the room, even if they don’t start out that way.

Example game

This game might be hard to visualize if you’ve never played it before, so here’s an example from a real-live game, to show you how one sentence can turn into a picture that can turn into a totally new sentence and on and on:

The kids all danced around the large oak tree.

Once there was a family of tree huggers.

After watching Fern Gully, Mrs. Mullen’s fourth grade class hurried out to the playground for a live reenactment.

The boys saw a picture of a girl and ran frantically to the park.

Many thanks to my sister and cousins for letting me use their artwork.

You can see some other game samples here.

Best for: 2 players or however many more you want.

What you need: You’ll need paper and pencil, or something else to write with (chalkboard, wipe-off board, etc.).

How to play: The object of the game is for one player to think of a word or phrase, then for the other players to successfully guess the word before their guesses run out.

Let’s say Eli, Lucy, and Zander are playing. Eli will be the first to think of a word, so he silently thinks of one: apple. Then he sets up the game on a piece of paper by drawing a shape like this:

Then, next to it, he draws blanks to represent each letter in the word (or phrase) the other players are guessing:

Now Lucy and Zander can start guessing which word fills the blanks. They do so by guessing one letter at a time. Say Lucy guesses the letter E.

Eli thinks of his word. If the letter Lucy guesses appears in the word, Eli fills it in every time it appears:

Now Lucy and Zander know one letter of the word. Next, Zander might guess the letter T. But Eli knows the letter T isn’t in his word, apple, so Eli marks it as an incorrect guess by beginning to draw a hanging stick figure. He also writes the incorrect letter down below, so Lucy and Zander can keep track of their incorrect guesses:

Say Lucy guesses the letter P. Eli fills in all of the P’s in the word:

The game continues with Lucy and Zander guessing letters. If Eli completes the drawing of the stick figure, like this:

…that means that Lucy and Zander lose because they didn’t guess the word in time. But if Lucy and Zander correctly guess all the letters in the word or the whole word itself at any time, they win.

Then start another round! We usually played that the person who guessed the word (or last letter) correctly got to choose the next word or phrase.

Ah, this game got me through lots of long hours of high school economics class. Some of the hardest words to guess are short words with few vowels, like black. Rare words like myrrh and hymn are great, too.

Hangman is easily adaptable for themes: just have players think of words or phrases to fit a particular area. (History hangman, anyone?) It’s a great time-filler, too, and works well with classes when there’s some time to kill.

Printables: Not that it’s necessary to play the game, but if you’d like a pre-made hangman printout, just click here and enjoy!

Best for: 2 players.

What you need: A pen for each player and a pad of paper to draw on.

How to play: Start by drawing a line down the center of your paper:

Say Jackie and T.J. are playing. Jackie starts by drawing something, anything, on her side of the paper:

Then T.J. has to draw the same thing on his side of the paper:

After that, it’s T.J.’s turn to draw something on his side that Jackie has to mirror. T.J. might draw something like this:

The game continues, with Jackie and T.J. taking turns drawing and mirroring each other’s drawings. When we played, we usually didn’t know what we would end up drawing; we would just take turns drawing shapes and it would turn into a symmetrical drawing, usually a person or a robot:

A simple game, but entertaining, especially for young kids who like drawing silly pictures.

Best for: 2 players.

What you need: Paper, something to write with, and two players.

How to play: The game is basically the same as regular tic-tac-toe: you try to win by getting three X’s or O’s in a row. The trick is, instead of one grid of nine squares, you have three grids of nine squares, all stacked on top of each other. A diagonal, horizontal, or vertical set of three lets you win, but since the game is 3-D, there are many more winning possibilities, some of which are shown here:

And it’s more fun. And challenging. And harder to end in a tie.

Variations: I suppose, since the playing space is so much larger, you could try with more than two players. I never have, but just use another letter or shape or color and see how it goes. Or I guess you could try with four grids stacked on top of each other instead of three…woah, woah, that’s a lot of squares…but who knows? There are also some other fun variations of tic-tac-toe like ultimate tic-tac-toe and, my personal favorite, human tic-tac-toe.

Printables: Want a printout with grids all drawn up and ready to go? Click here and enjoy!

What it is: Probably the most basic and well-known two-player game on paper. But you probably already knew that, didn’t you?

Best for: 2 players.

What you need: Paper and a pen (or two). Or, really, anything to write with and on (a stick in the stand, a marker and wipe-off board, a sharp stone on a cave wall…you know). And two people.

How to play: We all know how to play, right? Make a grid of nine squares on the paper by drawing two vertical lines and two horizontal lines. One player chooses to be X and one chooses to be O. Players take turns drawing their letters (X or O) in one of the nine squares. The first player to have three of their letters in a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) wins.

Easy, right? In fact, so easy it usually ends in a tie game and is really boring after a while. Except I did have one younger cousin who always managed to beat me…he’s smart, I tell you.

Variations: Okay, so maybe an old-fashioned game of tic-tac-toe just isn’t as exciting as it used to be. But 3-D triple-decker tic-tac-toe? Now that can be pretty fun. Ultimate tic-tac-toe brings even more strategy into the game. And human tic-tac-toe gets you off your feet and running around! Go check them out!

Best for: 2 players.

What you need: Paper to write on and two pens (sometimes it’s fun if you use different colored ones).

How to play: First, set up the playing space by making a grid of dots on the paper, like this:

You can make it as big as you want. I think we usually did grids of about 10 by 10, unless we wanted a really epic game and made a grid to take up the whole page (and I guess that happened quite a bit, too).

Anyway, now you’re ready to start. Let’s say Chris and Meg are playing. Meg starts by drawing a horizontal or vertical line between any two adjacent dots, like this:

Then it’s Chris’s turn. He also makes a horizontal or vertical line between any two adjacent dots:

And then it’s Meg’s turn again. Play continues back and forth until the grid looks something like this…

And then something like this:

And then the game starts getting exciting. See, the point of the game is to form squares—for every square you form, you get a point. So as you’ll notice on the above grid, Chris and Meg very carefully avoided adding a third side to any set of dots on the grid, because that would allow the other player to form a square and get a point.

So now it’s Chris’s turn. But now the only moves left on the gird are ones that would allow Meg to get a point. But Chris has no choice. So he draws a line in the bottom corner, and then Meg can form a square and writes her initial inside the box to mark it as her point:

But the rule is, if you get a point, you get to go again. Now Meg is forced to let Chris get a square somewhere. So then it becomes a game of letting your opponent score as few points as possible. Chris was smart because he picked a move that only gave Meg one square. Meg also finds a smart move that only gives Chris two:

And, shown above, Chris now has to go again and gives Meg three squares. So all clear? That’s how the game is played, until the grid looks something like this:

And then you count up each player’s squares and declare a winner. In this game, Meg had 11 while Chris had 14, so he’s the winner.

Strategies: If you’re playing with a large enough grid and you’re sneaky enough, sometimes you can make a three-sided almost-square while your opponent’s not looking. Then they’ll never find it and draw a line somewhere else, and you can close up your own square for a point. That’s always fun. And the grid above is pretty simple; if you’re playing with a larger one, it’s more challenging because it’s possible to outsmart your opponent by finding good moves later in the game.

Printables: Don’t want to draw bajillions of dots? Click the links to download a printout of four small grids or a printout of one large grid. Enjoy!