Best Family Board Games for Bored Kids (Aged 3-6)

With the threat of a COVID-19 quarantine looming, some people are panicking over toilet paper and hand sanitizer. My mind, however, has wandered to the daunting task of entertaining children indoors for 2 weeks straight.

I don't have answers for a lot of what's about to happen, but over the past couple of years I have discovered some really great kid friendly games that I thought I would share with you. Hopefully not many of us encounter a full on quarantine, but board games are also ideal social distancing activities, and are actually pretty fun even without the threat of a virus taking over our world.

Here are my tried and true board games (I use the term 'board' lightly - mostly meaning these are packaged games with rules, as young children often need something a bit more interactive than traditional board games allow). Most of these are for kids aged 3-6, but some skew younger or older. Also, one of my prerequisites is these games must be fun for parents as well (sorry Toilet Trouble).

Spot It! 

This is essentially a twist on a card game, and is pretty fun for parents too (my husband and I have been known to have a head to head match after the kids tire of it). Each player flips over a card with images on it and tries to match the picture with an overturned card in the middle. There is one matching image on every card, so it's a matter of who finds their's first. My son is 5 and loves this game, although when I play with him I sometimes give him a few extra seconds to look for his match. 

Chutes & Ladders (Snakes & Ladders)

One of my favourite games as a kid and the only true 'board game' on this list, Chutes & Ladders basically teaches the consequences of rolling the dice. If you land on a ladder you move up, if you land on a chute (or snake) you move down the board. Easy to play when assisting younger kids, and older kids can have fun counting the spaces (bonus: LEARNING).

Cootie 

This game has been a staple in our house since my son was 2 years old. The point of the game is to completely build your bug, and the rules can be as loose or rigid as your child's development allows for. It's fun for the whole family and really easy for young kids to grasp. I tired looking online to purchase it and couldn't find any retail outlets selling it in Canada - so the link in the title is to Amazon.com. If you find one second hand grab it up!

Go Fish

I think my favourite thing about this classic card game is that you can play it with any card like items you have. We play it with matching games, a regular deck of cards, or specific decks, like the one I linked to. It is awesome for memory, learning about numbers or animals (or whatever is on the deck you are playing with), and is easy to understand for younger kids as well. 

Connect 4 

I must admit, my 5 year old has legitimately beat me in this game. We have been playing since he was 2 years old and at first it was just fun for him to put the pieces in one by one as we took turns. Now that he's 5 he is fully committed to lining up 4 pieces in a row. While he still doesn't quite grasp connecting the pieces on a diagonal, he sometimes beats me because I'm paying attention to my offensive strategy rather than defensive. 

Magic Sketch Boogie Board   

Although the word 'board' is in this title this is actually a writing/drawing tablet that erases with the push of a button. My favourite thing about the Boogie Board is that my toddler can't draw on my walls with it.

There you have it - a list of my favourite board games for bored kids age three to six. I just did an Amazon panic purchase of a few more - Trouble, Guess Who?, and The Floor Is Lava - so I'll keep you posted on how those turn out. What gems am I missing? Drop me a comment with your favourite games to play with your kids. Let's share our entertainment knowledge with each other to make these uncertain times a bit easier!

xo

How To Disable That Darn Home Button on Your (child's) iPad

My son is one and I let him use my iPad. To be honest, I wish he cared about it more some days, so I could have 10 minutes to do a couple things around the house while he was distracted. In truth, he can't really focus on it much at this stage, but what he does absolutely love is the frickin' home button.

Whether it's on the iPad or my phone, the boy can't get enough of that enticing home button. I think him and Siri are best friends at this point, because I hear her telling him she 'doesn't understand' or 'didn't quite get that' at least a few times a day.

As soon as I get a cute age appropriate learning app set up on the iPad, my son pushes the home button and the app closes. I resolved that he was just to young to play with a tablet, but then he gets mad because he wants the app back on the screen, but over and over again, he just can't resist touching that circular finger magnet.

I finally went searching for a solution after he continually closed the Skype camera by pressing the home button while talking with his Grandma. Low and behold, there is a way to disable the home button for children built right into the iPad! I decided to post how to do it, because it's a bit hidden, in case anyone else was having the same issue.

1) Go into your iPad Settings- General                   

          

2)Find and click on Accessibility

Scroll to the very bottom in accessibility and click on Guided Access. Turn on Guided access, and click on Passcode Settings to set a password to exit guided access, if your child is old enough to figure out how to triple click the home button to exit. 

  

Now go into any app and triple click the home button. A a new menu will pop up that asks you if you want to start Guided Access, and also displays other options. Select what you want to do and hit start.

If the home button is pressed while Guided Access is on in an app, nothing will happen. In order to exit the app you need to triple click the home button and enter your password. You can then hit end to stop guided access.

Voilà! Now your little one can press the strangely desirable circle as much as he wants, and play with the app too.

Hope this helps you as much as it helped me! Let me know if you have any questions.

Pictures With Santa Are Damn Expensive

I recently went to go check out my local mall Santa with my one year old son, and got serious sticker shock. What the hell has happened to Santa? This is all new new to me, so how long have pictures with Santa been so damn expensive?

Price Sheet for Santa Photos

My family is doing fine financially, and I do not know if I can justify the expense of a picture with our local mall Santa. Where is the harm in letting my son meet the big guy in red and allowing me to take a couple photos myself? Or even charging me a nominal fee to take my own photos? At my local mall the cheapest option is to have one photo printed for $22.

I can understand paying a good amount of money for a photo shoot with a professional photographer for your Christmas card. These people capture your family in a variety of poses and and provide a good quantity of edited pictures. But how the hell does a mall production where you sit on Santa's knee and smile end up costing up to $100?