One of my New Years resolutions is to try to be more present with my family. My goal is to spend more quality time together and get everyone off their phones and away from screens! My kids are getting older and are all at that age where they are so busy with homework and preoccupied with their school activities and sports. So it’s easy for us to go days without really sitting down and talking or interacting face to face.

 

So one thing my husband and I decided to get our family for Christmas is a bunch of family board games to play together! These new games I found at Walmart on their “New Toys” page are so incredibly fun and are actually engaging and “cool” enough to win over my even the most skeptical kid, my teenager! I’m going to give you a run down of the games we loved the most and a quick description of how to play each of them so you can have a little head start (if you’re like me and get intimidated with new boards games that come with a lot of instructions)!

 

 

When hunting for new games for my family to try, I looked for games that would appropriate for my kids’ ages and would be interesting for all of them. Walmart has a huge selection of board games both online and in store. I suggest doing a little research on the games before buying to make sure all members of your family can participate. On Walmart.com each board game has a small description of how to play and the age ranges for which the game is appropriate.

 

The games I’m reviewing today are all appropriate for ages approximately 5-7 years and up! Though depending on your kid’s reading/writing ability you can judge whether or not they will be able to participate. Walmart, of course, also has many games geared toward younger kids and don’t require any reading and writing. You can check out their complete collection of board and card games on Walmart.com and then specify in the search criteria the “Lifestage” of your kids from “infant” all the way up to “adult”. 

 

 

 

The first and by far my kids favorite of the new games was called kNow! This is an absolutely hilarious quiz game that most kids from reading age and older can enjoy! The game utilizes the Google Assistant app to keep the game fun and up-to-date. You download the Google Assistant app on one person’s phone and then each of the cards has mini games on them which direct you to with ask questions or receive prompts from “Professor Know” on the app!

 

For example, one of the mini games on the cards is called Top Hits. The card directs you what to tell Google Assist app and then Professor Know gives you a one word prompt! Everyone then writes down another word to go to with the prompt. We got the prompt “chair,” so some of our responses were “wheel chair” or “high chair”. You then ask Google Assistant to tell you how many google hits there are for your word combo. The person with the highest amount of Google hits wins and moves ahead on the game board. To our surprise Kayla, my youngest, won this round with her word combo “flower chair”! ????  My whole family agrees that kNow! is our new favorite game!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next new game we played is called Telestrations. This is a super fun drawing game similar to Pictionary and the telephone game combined, and is appropriate for ages 7 and up! Each player receives a dry erase drawing/guessing pad and a dry erase pen. Everyone then draws a card, and one person rolls the dice to decide which word or phrase on your card you will draw. Each player then draws whatever their card says and passes the drawing onto the next person who tries to guess what it is. That person then writes their guess on the next page, which then becomes the word that the next player in the circle draws. You then go around the circle until you receive your original pad and go through the book to see how closely the last guess was to your original word. Like the game telephone, it’s fun to see how wrong the guesses and future drawings are! We never really kept score, instead just focusing on the fun of it!

 

 

The next game we got for the kids was a two player game called Battleship Shots. I promise it’s not a drinking game as it sounds, rather it’s a fun activity game which is a twist on the traditional Battleship game. Each player positions their ships just like in the traditional game, but then they bounce the balls over a divider to try to sink their opponents ships! The kids found it to be a fun and challenging game! And parents can even get in on the fun too!

 

 

We had such a great time as a family learning and playing these new board games from Walmart. I can’t wait to make this at least a weekly event for our family. Connecting with them this way is going to make a huge difference for us now and in the years to come! Be sure to check out these three fun family games as well as the other board games and puzzles from Walmart!