20 Games That Will Make Your 8 Year Old Think

Fancy a trip across North America? Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train game, the aim of which is to take the longest route for your journey as possible – the longer it is, the more points you get, though the biggest point maker is connecting two distant cities. Are you up for the train-tracking challenge?$39.35

Get those brains at the ready because it’s time to start thinking about words with this Hasbro Scrabble Crossword Game. This game is great for kids as it helps further develop their spelling and word skills – mixed in with a little ol’ healthy competition with friends or family.$10.67

It’s time for some strategic thinking with Blokus. With this game, all players receive 21 pieces and they each take it in turns placing their colored tiles on to the board, while trying to block spaces so the competition can’t use them, either. The player to win is the person with the least pieces left.$17.99

Carcassonne is an awesome city building game; players expand the city by one tile at a time all while placing their loyal followers on monasteries, cities and roads. The followers can become monks, farmers, thieves or even knights, depending on their location. The person with the most strategically placed followers, wins.$27.99

You have to have your wits about you to play this game, for sure. This game can be played with either 2 or 4 players, and the first to build a 3 story building is the winner. It’s not that simple, though, because you never know when someone’s going to use their God card!$26.99

This Melissa & Doug Suspend game requires steady hands. A great way to gather the family round the table, or for providing fun entertainment when your child has a few friends over to play. This is no game for chatting, though – everyone will fall silent as the tension builds and it gets even harder.$10.74

Catan takes around 60 minutes, ensuring amusing quality family time, for sure – though that’s only if you can resist playing it a second time, all over again. It’s time to move into Catan and take over, starting with the harbors, fields, mountains, forests and more with the aim of guiding your settlers to ultimate victory.$36.39

It’s time to decorate! No, not your bedroom, the walls of the royal Palace of Dvora (obviously). The aim of Azul is for players to compete against one another by planning ahead and using the right amount of tiles to decorate the board (wall) with the most beautiful of work for the best score possible. $37.00

Reinforce STEM skills with Rummikub – the original rummy tile game. Based upon both strategy and luck, it really is possible that anyone could win this fast-paced game, right up until the last minute. The boards are constantly changing throughout the game so no one knows what’s going to happen next – will you be the winner?$11.97

Jenga is the classic family friendly game – there’s sure to be no feuds between siblings when playing Jenga, it’s just so much fun and has everyone laughing, so it’s the perfect game for 8 year olds. They’re bound to love not knowing when the tower will fall, and of course, the rebuilding it back up.$10.29

This game is nice and simple – simply match your cards with the ones on the board, and if you have a match, place your colored counter on it, and once you’ve got a row of 5 counters it’s a sequence! The winner is the first to match 5 sequences before their opponent.$13.99

To win Battleship you have to search and destroy all 5 of the other player’s ships, before they get to yours. The classic game is brought to life with this super awesome electronic version by Hasbro, which also has the Battleship Salvo feature to launch multiple strikes at once. Now, how’s that for cool?$27.64

Two armies battle against each other in Stratego. It’s up to you to take your team of troops and spies for the win and capture the flag, though your opponent’s team will do everything they can to prevent you from doing that. Will you choose the red or blue team to take to victory?$22.99

Do you dare to take on Dragonwood? Players each take it in turns to either draw a new card or try and capture a creature or possibly even an enhancement. Take it upon yourself to form the strongest card combinations, but will you choose to Strike, Stomp or Scream your way to the win?$14.70

With Clue, you have to find out who the possible treacherous murderer could be; was it Green who left the candlestick in the study, or could it have been Plum with the wrench in the library? Who knows – it’s up to you and your friends to find out the information and solve this confusing mystery.$8.77

This gorgeous game is just like stepping into the outdoors, only you’re inside. With Photosynthesis, you have to put your gardening cap on and strategically pick where you sow your seeds, but be careful not to place them in the shade too much as that’ll prevent them from growing, and you won’t get your points.$33.00

Are you ready for Labyrinth, the incredible treasure hunting adventure? Who’re you going to choose to play with; a genie, a magical princess, the mighty dragon or even a scary ghost? Throughout the maze, you must find all of the treasure objects and characters, and return to the square; the first player to do this, wins.$21.24

Oh no – Mrs. Plumpert’s ever-so-delicious pot pie has been stolen, so it’s up to you, your sleuth friends, and the trusty evidence scanner, to find out which sneaky fox has taken the yummy pie. But you’d better act quickly before the hungry thief escapes the chicken coop, leaving you all Outfoxed.$19.99

Grab your buddies and pull out this wicked game: Kingdomino. Take the role of King and expand your mighty kingdom, though just like Dominoes, each new land tile must match the one before it – build the largest type of landscape you can, but don’t forget to place your crowns down, or they don’t count.$16.70

Get the whole family involved with Pictionary, the picture guessing game. Pictionary is the perfect game for 8 year olds as it puts their imaginations to the test, whether it’s their turn to draw, or guess what the weird image their friend could be drawing is. Just picture the fun you could all have!PRICES VARY

Watermelon chess is a traditional Chinese game; it’s nice and simple to set up so with a handful of loose coins for tokens, paper, and pen, you can play it anywhere (which is great for temporarily occupying the kids, wherever you may be). The aim of this is to surround and capture your opponent’s tokens.

Dust off your woodworking skills and grab the saw to make this DIY Triangle Peg Jump Game. It can be played alone or with a friend, at home or on the go – the aim is to take turns jumping the colored pegs over each other until just one is left. Ready to take it on?

Mancala is an ancient type of board game, though it may not have always been that way as it it thought to have been a way to keep record of their harvests in ancient Sumeria 5,000 years ago! Have a read through the blog to find out how you can play it, too.