10 old skool family games you can play to keep you entertained at home

We have rounded up some proper old fashioned family games from back in the day to help you keep boredom at bay during lockdown.

No phones! No screens! Just the daftest family games and a good old-fashioned way to break up the day with fun, family time.

Start a game club, introduce your own forfeits, compete for prizes and treats, and you’ll start making memories that encourage learning, creativity and lots of fun that won’t be forgotten.

1 – Charades

Split into teams, or go solo, and play for points and prizes as each person has one-minute to act out a movie, book, film or TV title to see who can guess the answer.

2 – Who Am I?

It’s the Post-It note game for two or group players! Choose a well-known person, write their name on a Post-It and stick onto the forehead of your opponent without them seeing it. They’ve got 10 questions with yes or no answers, to guess, who am I?

3 – Boy Girl

Everyone grab a notepad and divide your page into Girl, Boy, Animal, Food & Drink, Person and Place, working your way through the alphabet with only one-minute to fill in answers for each letter and category.

4 – 20 Questions Quiz Night

Why not take it in turns to put together a themed Quiz Night? Choose your subject, do a bit of research to find your 20 questions and answers, and get everyone together to battle it out with 30-seconds to answer each question. This is a great way to keep children occupied as they research their quiz, and the subjects are endless.

5 – Hangman

Choose a category from person, song, film or TV show. Grab a notepad and underline spaces to represent each letter and space out your words. Players take turns to guess letters. Add each correct letter to slowly reveal your title, and for every wrong guess, draw one of the six missing pieces to complete a hangman. The winner is the first person to get three complete hangmen.

6 – The Great Family Bakeoff

Give your family the same set of basic ingredients, and let’s see what they can bake! Take a taste test, award marks for presentation, and find your very own star baker – while the person with the least marks gets to do the dishes!

7 – Our Neighbour’s Dog

A great way to liven things up while kids get ready for bed or do those boring things they don’t want to do, like tidying up! Players take turns to describe the pretend neighbours’s dog with a different adjective. Each word travels from player-to-player with a different letter of the alphabet. The first player might say, “Our neighbour’s dog is an angry dog.” Followed by, “Our neighbour’s dog is a big dog.” Players are eliminated if they can’t come up with a word in time!

8 – Cards Night

Younger children will love playing a game of Snap! And as they get more confident, card games can get more interesting.

Old Jack is a simple game they’ll love. Remove three Jacks, then deal the pack, asking players to sort their hands into pairs of colour and number. Place the pairs in a pile. Each player then offers their hand, face-down, to the person on their left. They pick a card and see if it matches one of theirs. If it does, they add them to the pile and offer their hand to the next player. The player who gets Old Jack, has to get rid of him, or be the loser!

In Beggar My Neighbour deal the cards, face-down. The person to the left of the dealer places his top card face-up in the centre. Each player adds one card to the centre until someone turns up an Ace, Jack, Queen or King. The player who turns up one of those cards gets payment from the next player. An Ace earns four cards. A King earns three cards. A Queen earns two cards. A Jack earns one card.

These payment cards are placed on the centre pile. If an Ace, King, Queen or Jack is turned up, the next player has to pay the required amount. This continues until the last player who turned up an Ace or Court Card takes the whole centre pile and puts it at the bottom of his own. They start the next round, and the game begins again. The winner is the first player who uses all their cards. If playing to a timer, the winner is the player with the least cards when time runs out.

9 – Statues

Tire everyone out with a game of Statues! Everyone dances around to their favourite songs, before you stop each track when they least expect it – making them hold their pose and become statues. Players are eliminated for wobbling, laughing or falling over!

10 – My Family’s Got Talent!

Hold a family talent show! Each person puts together their act, keeping it secret, until they perform for the family, who all get to vote for their favourite. From singing and dancing, to magic tricks, comedy routines and training the dog, let’s see who’s the star of the show!