34 Classic (and Nostalgic) Board Games to Share With Your Kids

An excellent game for kids, the classic Hungry Hippos will keep them entertained for a while! Choose which of the four colored hippos you want to play as and get chomping! All you have to do to win is “eat” the most marbles and fill your hippo up.

Celebrating over 65 years since this game was first created, play this throwback board game and indulge in some nostalgia with your kids. Make your way through the different destinations on the board, such as Lollypop Woods, and be the first one to make it safely to “Home Sweet Home”.

Become a mouse and collect cheese wedges someone has left out in the open. A mouse can’t say no to cheese. But watch out! There’s a crazy contraption that’s been constructed! Stay away from it because if your mouse gets caught, you’re out of the game. Perfect for family activities nights!

We all have memories of playing Chutes and Ladders, it’s one of the best board games around. Spin the spinner and move the number of spaces you land on. If you land on a good deed, climb the ladders. But if you land on a bad deed, you have to go down the chute.

Possibly the only time aggravating your family members is actively encouraged! The old school board game Aggravation is a classic. Race around the board, disturbing your fellow players’ marbles to try and be the first one to reach home. A shortcut could help you but it might hinder you later in the game so be careful.

Perfect for teaching children to read, Uncle Wiggly is a classic board game from the early 1900’s. Take it in turns to read a rhyming verse from a card and then make your way around the board, starting at Uncle Wiggly’s bungalow, and try to reach Dr Possum’s House.

Operation is a classic game everyone has heard of. Don your surgeon’s gloves and pick up your operating tool (tweezers in this case) to fix your patient’s ailment. But be very careful, if your tweezers set off the buzzer and make his nose light up, you lose!

Trouble is an old school board game and one you’ll remember playing as a child. Use the Pop-O-Matic dice popper to roll the dice and see how many spaces you can move. Be the first one to get all four of your pegs around the board and safely over the finish line to win.

An old school board game, Mystery Date was first released in 1965. Geared towards young girls, the aim of the game is to put together a date outfit by collecting three cards of the same color. The outfit has to match the date at the mystery door and you must also avoid the dud!

Perfect for family game nights with your kids, this old school board game is back! Race against your fellow players to make it back to the home space in the center of the board. Everyone will be trying to be the first to get there so trust no one!

Take it back to the 60’s with this throwback board game. The Game of Life is what it says it is; a game about life! Choose the life you want…college, kids, a fancy car. At the end of the game, pay your debts and add up what is left. Whoever’s the richest wins.

Go back in time to the 50’s with this throwback board game! Risk is a game of strategy where the aim of the game is to take out the other players and own all the territory up for grabs on the board. Basically, all you have to do is conquer the world. That sounds simple enough, right?

Remember Let’s Go Fishin’? This old school board game is sure to bring back childhood memories for parents. Create those same memories for your own kids with the original fishing game. Pick up a rod and catch the most fish…it’ll create hours of fun.

Try and guess which character your opponent has by asking yes/no questions. They’ll be trying to guess who you have as well so you must be quick, whoever correctly guesses first wins. Flip down the characters you’ve eliminated and when you’re confident, take a guess.

A super simple and really easy to understand game is Pass the Pigs. It’s basically a dice game, where weighted pigs are thrown like dice and the positions they land in have different values. This is how you win points. The first one to reach 100 points wins.

Take it back to basics with Chinese Checkers. Suitable for two-six players, the aim of the game is to be the first to get all 10 of your colored marbles to the opposite triangle. You take it in turns to move one of your marbles one space or you can hop it over another marble.

The classic board game, Sorry, was first introduced in the 1930’s. The aim of the game is to move the 4 pawns you have from your start position to your home. If you draw a sorry card you can send another person’s pawn back to their starting position. The first to get all 4 home wins.

Mancala is an ancient game which can be traced back in history so I guess you could argue that it’s one of the most classic board games there is! All you have to do is collect more stones or marbles than your opponent by moving counter clockwise around the board.

Have you ever fancied yourself as a detective? Try out your murder solving skills with Clue, a classic board game that everyone knows and loves. Be the first to discover who killed Mr Boddy, what object they used and which room it took place in to win.

Perfection is ideal for teaching small children about shapes and recognising the same shape but in a different way. Race against the clock to fit your 9 shapes into the correct holes. If you get them all in before the timer runs out, you’re the winner. Learning combined with family activities – perfect!

If you want to beat this electronic version of the classic game Simon, simply remember the sequence of lights and sounds and repeat it. It starts off nice and easy but as you get better it gets faster and more difficult. You’ll really need to concentrate if you want to win at this fun family activity!

This board game takes a lot of strategy and quick thinking to win. A two-player game, place your colored discs on the board to try and sandwich in your opponent’s discs. Every time you successfully do it, flip their disc over to your color. The person with the most of their colored discs on the board wins.

This edition of Yahtzee is a real throwback as it looks just like the classic 50’s board. Use five dice to throw a number combination and after 13 goes, add up everyone’s scores and see who’s the winner. Try and get all five dice the same though as that’s a Yahtzee and that’s the ideal scenario!

Battleships has to be one of the most classic board games out there. Use the coordinates on the grid to try and take out your opponent’s naval ships. Place white pegs where you’ve missed their ships and red pegs when you make a direct hit.

Whether you choose to play it by yourself or with friends, Jenga is a classic game that we’ve all heard of. Stack the 54 wooden blocks into a tower and take it in turns to pull one out carefully, without making the tower tumble. If you do that, you lose.

Start them young with Monopoly Junior. This board game is a simpler version of the classic game, Monopoly. Kids can choose between 4 adorable tokens and buy places they’ll like, such as the zoo or movie theatre and single notes keep the money situation easy enough for them to understand. A great family activity!

Shake the 20-sided die to begin this creative game. Use the letter displayed on the die to come up with answers to match the categories listed on your card. If your answers are a little bit out there, don’t worry. That’ll help you win Scattergories!

Cribbage is a game of strategy and mathematics. The basic rules are to make your way around the board before your opponent using a deck of cards. Each card is worth points and you need 121 points to make it around the 2 rows on the board first.

A classic game, Connect 4 is a simple game kids can play with their parents or friends. Choose between red or yellow discs and then try to be the first to get 4 in a row by slotting the discs into the grid. Place them strategically though or your opponent could block you!

The classic edition of Trivial Pursuit has the old school retro board. Containing 2400 trivia questions from the traditional game categories, you have to correctly answer the questions and move around the board. Get to the end first and claim your “know-it-all” crown!

Ideal for playing solo or with a friend, Boggle is great for quick thinking and brain training. Shake up the letters, start the sand timer and try to spot as many words in those letters as you can. Try and think outside the box though because if you both think of the same word, it doesn’t count.

Quite possibly the most classic of all the board games is Monopoly. The aim of this game is to make the most money, buying places on the board and then building properties on them. If another player lands on your properties, they have to pay you rent and could end up bankrupt.

Checkers is a classic board game that we’ll all have heard of. The object of the game is to take all of your opponent’s pieces off the board or position your pieces, so they have no moves left to play. Once you understand the rules, Checkers is a fun game to play with a friend.

Scrabble is a classic board game which makes a perfect family game. Play in teams or one on one, it’s a race against the clock to make the best word using the letters you’ve got. Each letter has a value so try and be as obscure as you can to get the most points.