I’m not sure there is a parent out there (well probably one or two!) that aren’t facing a daily battle with children and screen time. It’s a fact of modern day living and something that we just can’t avoid, but we can manage. I’ve read so many posts on social media about strategies to limit children’s iPad/TV/X Box consumption, my favourite being only charging the iPad up once a week and when its gone its gone! But there is a new trend in town, which is bringing families together and raising the heads of children that are so used to looking down at a screen. And that trend is the family board/card game – new spins on traditional games and lots of ‘cooperative’ concept games.
Cooperative board games are great way to work together and enjoy an activity without competing – something which really helps when you have warring siblings! A great game (suitable for 5+) that works on the ‘cooperative’ concept is the ‘Race to the Treasure’ board game, which requires players to strategize and cooperate to bag the treasure and beat the Ogre! This game really helps to develop skills of strategy, math’s grid concepts, shared decision-making and avoids all of the arguments at the end when one child is victorious over the other!
Race to the Treasure, along with Dinosaur Escape and Mermaid Island are produced by a brand called Peaceable Kingdom who believe in slowing down and putting screens aside, so we can play with our kids, spend time with friends and connect with family - something that we are all trying to get a little bit of back into our family lives.
For the older children, who are even more challenging to prize away from their technology, is the new range of EXIT games, based on the very popular escape rooms that have popped up pretty much everywhere! The suggested age for EXIT games are 12+, they are a one hit game as once they are solved they cannot be used again but they are a really great group activity for friends or family.
In each EXIT game, your team starts out locked in an imaginary room, or trapped somewhere. You must solve a series of riddles and puzzles in order to unlock doors and objects and reveal new riddles. Each correct solution brings you to another riddle and eventually to freedom! Crafts4Kids currently stock five different games from ‘The Pharaoh's Tomb’ to the intriguing ‘Dead Man on the Orient Express’.
So, grab yourself a cuppa, bring the family together on a rainy Sunday afternoon and enjoy some good old-fashioned board game fun!