Some Favorite Board Games (August Posting Challenge)

In Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport argues for using leisure time on high quality things, not just scrolling through social media feeds. I don't care to get into that point, except that he says board games are a great way to spend leisure time.

We love board games at our house. I recently taught our 3 oldest to play Ticket to Ride: Europe. And we look forward to my days off when we can play it.

Here are a few favorites that come to mind:


  • Pandemic. (This is the absolute best game ever. It's a cooperative game built around saving the world from 4 out of control viruses. I enjoy losing as much as winning because there is so much suspense.)
  • Outfoxed. (This is a cooperative game that you can play with kids as young as 4. Everyone works together to gather clues and deduce who is the fox that stole the chicken pot pie.)
  • Ticket to Ride: Europe. (Em doesn't enjoy this as much, so I hadn't played in a few years. But I brought it out to teach the older kids, and it is so much fun.)
  • Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. (We recently got this and love it. It's called a deck building game which means that you add cards to your hand as the game progresses to strengthen it and defeat the enemies. We love the Harry Potter theme too.)
  • Clue. (Old reliable.)
  • Hoot Owl Hoot. (This is a cooperative game that even the very young can play. We play it with the 2-3 year olds.)
Notice a theme of cooperative games? It makes game playing a lot more fun when everyone works together. And we have enough fighting in our house already.

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