Roxy the Monkey offers a round-up of games and activities for hours of family fun.

Fun Games to Play with Your Family

Whether you’re inside, outside or in the car, you can have loads of fun playing games with your family. You’ll spend time laughing and learning when you work together to solve a puzzle or compete to see who’s the champ.

GAMES PLAYED INSIDE

Sticker Bandit: Give every family member 10 stickers. Over the course of an evening, try to sneak up on someone and put a sticker on their shirt without them noticing. Whoever uses all their stickers first wins!

Hallway Hopscotch: Using low-stick, removable tape, mark and tape the lines for hopscotch in a hallway or basement. Challenge different family members to a game and keep track of wins and losses.

Ping Pong Bounce: Set up a row of mugs and try to bounce ping-pong balls into each one. Each player gets 10 tries and high score wins!

Feather Races: Place a large target on the floor across the room. Give each family member a feather and have them race each other to blow their feather towards the target.

GAMES PLAYED OUTSIDE

Glow-in-the-Dark Bowling: You’ll need 10 glow sticks, 10 water bottles, and a basketball or volleyball. Once it’s dark, place a glow stick in each bottle of water, then set up the bottles in a bowling pin triangle (rows of 4, 3, 2, 1). With turning on any outdoor lights, roll the ball towards the bottles and see how many you can knock over.

Super-Size Tic-Tac-Toe: Use an old shower curtain or sheet and permanent markers or tape to make a tic-tac-toe grid. Lay the grid on the grass, gather up a few Frisbees, stand behind a line about 3 yards away and see if you can throw a winning tic-tac-toe row.

Crab Soccer: In the crab walk position, keep a large, lightweight ball or balloon in the air and try to move it across the field to score a goal.

Water Balloon Toss with a Twist: You’ll need at least four family members for this tossing game. Fill water balloons and find two beach towels. Divide family members into teams of 2. Each team holds a beach towel flat by the ends. Team 1 places a water balloon in the middle of the towel and tosses it to Team 2 to catch on their towel. The team who catches the most balloons wins!

GAMES PLAYED AT THE TABLE

Family Photo Go Fish: Using your favorite photos of your favorite people, create and print two photo cards of each subject. With wrong sides facing, glue the photo cards to decorative scrapbook paper so the back sides of the cards are all the same. Shuffle the deck, lay the cards photo side down, and play Go Fish.

Listen and Guess: Place about 20 small objects on a tray and give family member about 30 seconds to see what’s on the tray, then cover it or take it away. Have them close their eyes. Pick one object off the tray and make a sound with it. See if your family members can guess which object you’re using.

Yeahs and Yucks: Each person writes down likes and dislikes on small, individual pieces of paper. Fold up the papers and place them in a bowl. Pull out one paper at a time and see if you can you figure out who wrote what. You can use many different topics for the game—like movies, music, snacks and more.

The Chopstick Challenge: Use a pair of chopsticks and see how many mini marshmallows or grapes family members can pick up in a minute.

GAMES PLAYED IN THE CAR

License Plate Tales: Make a goofy sentence using the letters found in the license plate ahead of you. If you found GHS, you could say “Gray hamsters swim.” Or ZAM = Zebras are magical.

I Went on an Adventure: Players take turns following the letters of the alphabet to describe the items they packed for their adventure. Each player repeats the full list of suitcase items in alphabetical order and adds a new item with the next alphabet letter.

Rainbow Red: Using the colors of the rainbow, players watch out the car windows to spot 10 items of that color. When they see an item matching the game color, they shout,” Rainbow red car” or “Rainbow yellow house.” Have someone keep track of how long it takes to find 10 of each rainbow color.

Would You Rather?: While there isn’t a winner in this game, you’ll discover new things about your family by giving them two choices. Think of things they can do, eat or experience and see if other family members agree with their choices. You could ask, “Would you rather kiss a porcupine or cuddle with a skunk?” How about, “Would you rather sing in front of your class or hop like a bunny down the school hallway?” or “Would you rather live 100 years in the past or 100 years in the future?”

GAMES PLAYED IN A LARGE SPACE

Movement Mimic: This is like the repeating alphabet game, except it’s about moving and dancing. The first family member creates a movement—like waving her hands. The second family member waves her hands, then adds a movement like stomping her feet. The third family member waves her hands, stomps her feet, and wiggles her hips and on it goes until someone forgets a movement. Be sure to play music as you move and dance!

Knock It Over: Place a tennis ball in one leg of a pair of pantyhose. Put the pantyhose on your head like a hat, with the tennis ball leg hanging down over your face. Set up a circle of filled water bottles and set a timer for 1 minute. Move your head back and forth to swing the tennis ball towards each water bottle to see how many you can knock over before the timer goes off.

Paper Bag Plays: Give two family members a paper bag filled with unrelated props, like a bowl, a sock, a ruler, and a toy. Allow 5 minutes for them to create a silly skit using the props. Award points if your family is competitive!

Clothespin Tag: Each family member decorates 5 pinch-style wooden clothespins. Attach the clothespins to the back of each person’s shirt. Say “Ready, set, go” and let everyone scatter. See how many clothespins you can gather from others in 1 minutes.