Best Board Games for Elementary Kids for Fun Family Time
“I am bored.” This sentence is one that parents hear year after year as their children grow older. Whether it’s because of snow, extreme heat, or lack of television or tablets, children find themselves unable to release their ever-present energy when locked indoors. Parents can curb this with creativity, imagination, and a few board games kept in a closet. Today, we are sharing our favorite board games for 8 year olds and their whole family for quality family time! Notice, we said 8 year olds – only because we are gauging by our own 8 year old for this post. But we are meaning 8 year olds, slightly younger children, and slightly older children. Adults will enjoy many of them, too!
If you are looking to buy game board gifts for someone in your family or as a birthday gift for one of your child’s friends, look no further! Surely, you will find some great board games for 8 year olds and younger out of these excellent choices! Read on as we share some of our favorite games with you for children under 8 and big kids, too! Just remember, it can be tricky to find the perfect family games for each member of your family. It’s the luck of the draw, you could say! Or maybe finding the right game is the perfect roll of the dice!
I recommend these board games for 6 year olds to 8 year olds. However, many of these games still work for older kids and some might be okay for slightly younger kids.
As an Amazon Associate, we recommend products to moms and we earn from qualifying purchases. We may earn a small commission (at no cost to you) for our endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, or link to any products or services from this website.
Ticket to Ride: First Journey
This fun game is a version of the popular Ticket to Ride game that is perfect for younger kids. This board game is based on a train ride with the fun challenge of collecting train cards and finding routes on the map. The winner is crowned when one player captures the Golden Ticket!
Reading is not required as pictures are used to identify the different cities on the map. One round of Ticket to Ride: First Journey can usually be finished within 30 minutes or so.
Qwirkle
Qwirkle offers a colorful twist on dominoes. The Qwirkle game contains 108 tiles, each of which shows one of six shapes in one of six colors. Players start the game with six tiles, and on each turn, they must add tiles to the board by matching them to rows or columns of tiles with the same shape or color. Players earn points based on the number of tiles in the row or column to which they add new tiles.
At the end of the turn, players must draw as many tiles from the pile as they added to the board. The first player to be able to play all six tiles in one turn gets bonus points and ends the game. The person with the highest total score wins.
Aggravation
Aggravation is a classic marble race game designed for two to six players. Dice are rolled to determine movement. The goal is to be the first player to get all four of your marbles to the finish. You can send an opponent’s marble back to the beginning if you can land on his piece.
The sisters in our house love to aggravate each other by landing on each other’s spots!
Candy Land Board Games for 8 Year Olds and Younger
Candy Land is a board game for two to four younger players where the players race their gingerbread men to the finish. The popular game of Candy Land uses a color-coded card draw system so children who are too young to read can play. Although Candy Land is a great game for kids as young as 3 and 4, it still holds appeal to kids as old as 8 or 9. It is a great game for an older sibling to play with a younger sibling.
Mom Says…
This is simple game is a favorite from my childhood – although I do have an embarrassing memory of having a fit of anger as my uncle (a teenager) crossed the finish line! I remember getting mad and scrambling the board game all of up – hissy fit style – before storming off! I was probably about five years old. Yet, it was still always one of my favorites – especially when I won! It is a good choice for any starter board game for younger kids! Our girls enjoyed this game all the way from 4 years old to 8 years old!
Operation is a Perfect Board Game for 8 Year Olds
Operation is a game where the players attempt to remove plastic pieces molded after body parts from recesses in a picture of an operation patient. The object of the game is to remove the pieces from “Sam’s” body without touching the sides of the recess, which causes a buzzer to go off and signifies the end of a turn and the play of the next player. This game is playable by any number of players.
We play this one often at our house, and hardly any of us can ever get that funny bone! It causes us all much misery at the end of the game! And for good reason – some people believe the funny bone is one of the most difficult body parts to remove from the game of Operation. What do you think? Which is the most difficult Operation body part to remove?
Sorry!
Sorry! is a game where two to four players race to get their game pieces to the end. If you land on your opponent’s piece, you can send her back to the beginning. And if it happens to be the other way around and your sister sends you back to the beginning, then you will be really sorry. Believe us, we know!
This classic game uses a card draw system to determine movement.
Trouble
Trouble is a classic race game using a single die in a bubble to decide movement. Landing on an opponent’s piece sends that piece back to the beginning where the player must wait to roll a six before he is allowed to move that piece again. Trouble is another retro game taking many of us parentals back into our childhood! It is designed for two to four players.
Monopoly Junior is a Great Board Game for 8 Year Olds
Monopoly Junior is a variant of the classic Monopoly game that features recognizable stores and shops in place of houses and hotels. As you move around the game board, you can purchase properties that resonate with young kids – an arcade, a candy shop, etc. If you are unfortunate enough to land on an opponent’s property, you have to buy some of her product.
This Monopoly Junior game is fun, and there are so many varieties available. Also, there is much less of a learning curve than with traditional Monopoly. Harper received a regular Monopoly game for Christmas this past year. We gave it the old college try, but we just found the game to be too intense for an 8 year and a 10 year old. For one thing, traditional Monopoly takes a long time to play! A LONG time! Definitely one of the classic strategy games out there, it is a great game to work with math skills and problem-solving skills. However, many young kids may find it too intense and have a hard time juggling so many rules and strategy techniques at once.
Harper Says…
I do like the regular Monopoly. It is really long and you can have multiple people play. I like how you have the choice to sell property or keep property. I also like how you can get stuck in jail. This game is fun for people that like to do things connected to real estate. Sometimes, the game is a little over the heads of younger kids and even older children.
Scrabble Junior
In this junior edition of the classic game Scrabble, children must match their letter tiles to the words on the game board. Players score points and win chips for completing words. The player with the most chips at the end of Scrabble Junior wins. The game board is also two-sided and features an additional game on the reverse side for when players need more of a challenge. On the reverse side, players must create their own words from the tiles and place them on the board to score points.
Pictionary Game Versions are Great Board Games for 8 Year Olds
Children will learn to use their imagination in this junior version or family versions of the classic game Pictionary. Players are divided into two teams. From challenge cards, each player must sketch items for teammates to guess. Players must sketch quickly because each team is only given a minute to guess what their teammate is drawing. The Pictionary Junior game includes themes specifically for children and is recommended for 3 or more players. It is a cooperative game that encourages teamwork.
Sometimes the Pictionary Junior can be tricky to find in stock. If so, there are plenty of other family versions of Pictionary – like this Pictionary Air: Family and Pictionary Air: Kids Vs. the Grownups which use an app and a smart TV for play.
Clue Junior Game is An Appropriate Board Game for an 8 Year Old
Children will test their detective skills as they try to figure out which players stole the cake and ate it too in this classic game. Well, that is one version anyway. Just like with Monopoly and some of the other classic games, there are many versions out there! Players must move around the game board collecting clues and trying to solve the mystery. The player who guesses the correct culprit wins the Clue Junior game. This game is recommended for 2 to 6 players.
Now, we did move on up to the original version of Clue this past year, and the game is an excellent choice for our family game night now with a 10-year-old in the house. For our 8 year old, the game is still a bit of a challenge, but she can hang. Sometimes, we let her play in a “team” with older players like Mom or Dad while everyone else plays separately.
Harper Says…
When playing the game of Clue, I really like the mystery. I like how it is a game that goes a little longer, but not too long. Some rounds can go longer than others. For example, if one person makes a guess at the solution and doesn’t get the correct answer, the game just continues on until someone makes a correct guess of the suspect. There can be multiple people playing. I like playing Ms. Peacock!
More from our List of Best Board Games for 8 Year Olds and Slightly Older or Younger
Check out these other great board games for elementary aged children!
- Charades for Kids – A favorite of ours!
- Guess Who? – Does anyone really dislike this classic game?
- Sequence – An oldie but a goodie, this retro game has an age recommendation of 7 years old and up. There is a Sequence Junior available for younger kids if you think this version is a little more complex than you need.
- PIctureka: Picture Game for Kids – If your kids love the seek and find games and books, they will surely love this seek and find board game!
Consider Kids’ Personalities and Abilities
We hope you will use our list of the best board games for 8 year olds and other elementary kids and their families to keep your closet stocked with family fun! When rainy or cold weather prevents you from going outside, grab the entire family and a great board game from the closet. Try setting one night aside each week for a family game night. Board games provide an inclusive way for children to interact, and they encourage friendly competition and quick thinking which is helpful practice for real life. They also encourage students to understand simple rules while developing different skills like fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, deductive reasoning, critical thinking, and strategic thinking.
One thing we have learned is that sometimes, for whatever the reason, even the best family board games don’t work for a certain child. Little kids are unpredictable, as you probably know. Maybe the game works for older siblings or other family members, but not for a certain younger child. If this is the case, you can try to modify a good board game into a cooperative board game where family members of different ages play in teams.
Just because you stick to the recommended age on the board game box, doesn’t mean your family has found the perfect game. Some kids need more time to develop social skills and strategic planning to meet the expectations of a certain game. This is especially true if you are going by the minimum age range listed on a game! Sometimes young children just need to get to the right place in their development and skill level to be successful at these fun board games!
We hope you reach the finish line in finding the best board games for 8 year olds in your family!
