Family Game Night - Preschool Style

I have often seen the idea of a family game night pushed by the game manufacturers. Well, many of the games they suggest are for older children and hard to implement when your child is only 4. However, my daughter received the kids versions of a few classic games for Christmas so we opted to play those. We played Monopoly Town and Clue Carnival Caper, both of which are good for my 4 year old in difficulty and game length.

In Monopoly Town, Mr. Monopoly sits in his car and gives you instructions. As you land on properties you can add a level to them up to the specified level. If you complete the building, you put your color roof on it and can collect rent from then on. The goal is to use your 5 roofs first and place your golden roof on top to win the game. There is no reading involved, but lots of counting.

Clue Carnival Caper plays a little different than the adult version of Clue. First, the mystery is around missing carnival prizes, not a murder. Instead of dealing cards to the players, they are placed in various carnival locations and you can see cards as you visit the locations. There are two versions of the game - an easy version where you determine the thief and the time of the crime and a harder version where you determine the thief, the time of the crime, and the scene of the crime. You play 5 rounds which generally allows you to see 5 of the 6 sets of cards placed around the board. After each round, every player takes a guess to the thief, time, and scene (in the harder version only). After the last round, you see who did it and the player with the most correct guesses wins. My daughter still needs an adult partner to play this game with her. Also, we try not to look at what other players are guessing since that could give additional insight into the answers, but is beyond a 4 year olds powers of deduction.

Family Game Night was a nice change from our typical nightly TV viewing. I will admit that my daughter asked for an episode of Scooby Doo while she had her bedtime snack, but we held firm that the games were in place of TV and she finished her snack in 10 minutes instead of 25.

She has other games, but my husband just doesn't get into playing the Princess or Tinker Bell games. For active games, my daughter loves Hullaballoo, and just got Hyper Dash that we can all play. She has Scrabble, Jr, but it is still a little hard for her since she does not read. She also has the childhood classics of Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-o, Cootie, and Don't Break the Ice. They just feel more like us playing a game with her as opposed to all of us playing together.

I would definitely like to make a night like tonight a regular occurrence in our house.