Searching for educational and fun card games for your child? Card games teach children to develop motor, cognitive, and emotional skills.
Also, playing card games are beneficial for dexterity and eye-hand coordination. Not every family-friendly card games provide these advantages, however there are numerous card games that are specifically designed for kids.
What are the best card games for kids? Simple action of holding cards helps children develop number and shape recognition, grouping, and counting. Card games also teach important social skills including verbal communication, patience, interaction, and discipline.
The best card games to play for kids are:
- Smack It!
- Not Parent Approved
- Go Fish
- Old Maid
- Slap Jack
- Monster Memory Match
- Crazy 8’s
- Guess Who?
- Kids Again Maturity
- Skip-Bo Junior
These card games offer fun ways to introduce basic math skills, and require kids to concentrate and remember moves in order to play well. They are entertaining, but also create healthy competitive environment.
If you are looking for different ways to spend quality time with your family, you don’t need to look outside anymore!
Think out of the box by being in one, and have a great amount of fun by engaging your family in playing some cool kid-friendly card games.
In this article, we are going to review the easiest card games for kids that do not require much skill or experience. In addition, with these game tips you can help your children to take turns, follow rules, learn math, memory skills and face competition in a healthy way.
What are some easy card games for kids?
Family game night with Uno or Phase 10 are classic card game.
However, there are lot more children based card games that actually help to develop strategic thinking. Keeping them busy and entertained to learn basic math skills and many more.
Let’s dive in to learn more about kid specific card games:
Smack It! is one of those card games that becomes everyone's favorite game after just one play!
It is not only engaging and exciting by keeping your wits up throughout, but it also enhances alertness and responsive systems, so you can hit two birds with one stone!
Key features- Required number of players and the age range are likely to be suitable for all family members.
- Need about 2-7 players within an age range of 6-12 years.
- About 15 minutes to play, so it quick and fun.
- Gameplay and rules are simple, straightforward, and easy to understand.
- Similar to two of the most lovable games, 'War' and 'Slap Jack'. It is as fast as the speed of light and if you let your guard down even a single moment, you are done for!
- Enhances mind strength, responsiveness, and analytical part of the brain, thereby improving the speed of one's math skills
The goal of the game is to be the last player with remaining cards to win.
Start by shuffling the cards thoroughly and deal all cards face down. The player on the dealer’s left flips the top card of their pile to create a center pile.
Each player cannot look at their cards or crowd the central pile with hands. When there is a Challenge! card, all players flip one card and ace it on the center. The player with the highest-numbered card wins.
Being one of the most imaginative games on the list, Go Fish takes you on an aquatic adventure even while staying at home.
This enhances one's imaginative skills and also teaches about different species found in oceanic habitats.
Key features- Has a single deck of tiny cards that are convenient to hold and play with small hands.
- Helps kids take the game anywhere they want, even on school trips, family vacations, and long road trips. So having fun is very possible with this deck around!
- This is a child-friendly, fun, and educative game that can develop learning skills and identification in the form of an exciting family game. The aquatic creatures are cutely illustrated, making them extremely attractive to any kid.
- By calling out the animal names, they become more and more familiar with the creature and carve it into the child's long-term memory.
- Gender independent and very educational.
- Unite people and create a friendly spirit among people, thereby making family time count.
The objective of the game is to win the most “books” or any four of a kind of cards.
For younger children, change to match a pair of rank 2 cards instead of 4 to let them win and continue the game flow. The game will continue until no one has cards left in there hand or the draw pile runs out.
The Old Maid is also one of the interesting family classic card games that has the ability to touch the kid's emotional side as well.
It is very educational and can even influence the kid's career exploration and choices in the not so distant future.
Key features- This game can be played by many families as their age requirement is 5+
- The stockpile is beautifully designed and made attractive to kids.
- The directions are simple and straightforward
- It takes less than 1 minute to explain the game!
In order to play Old Maid, shuffle and deal all the cards. Each player tries to match as many pairs as possible in their hands to place the pairs face down on the table in front of them.
The game continues when the player offers the cards in their hand face down to the person on their left. Next player takes one card and sees if it matches with another card.
The player left having “Old Maid” card lose the game.
Being one of the most loved card games for children, Slap Jack is a very enticing and fun game that has gained a lot of popularity because of its educational potential.
It is a number game that provides a really fun way of learning and development for the young brain.
Key features- Help kids memorize and master the numbers with this fast and exciting sense game!
- With an all-in-one construction and anytime-anywhere design, the tiny pocket-fit cards that can be your friend no matter where you are!
- Is a child-friendly game deck with a smart and attractive design. The cards have both the number and separate dots, so if they ever get one wrong they can count up the bright and shiny dots.
- The player and age requirement suits all families with a minimum of 2 players and 6 tops who are in the age range of 4 and above.
- Fits in your pocket to make it portable to learn ABC on the go.
Slap jack card game makes learning ABC’s fun and engaging. It is great pre-reading tool to acknowledge uppercase and lowercase letter recognition and identification.
Also, practice how the letter sounds and associating letters to object by playing the card game. Perfect for pre-kindergarten to 1st grade, and also for homeschooled kids.
Needless to say, the immense amount of brain involvement and development of memory retaining capacity, Monster Memory Match is an enjoyable and intense card game that everyone will love!
Not only is it exciting and family-friendly, but it can also help in creating new 'memories' by playing this game with the ones you want to spend time with.
Key features- Has 0-time constraints, which provides kids with unlimited entertainment and learning
- Made of high quality and extra-durable cards, making it resistant to many kinds of accidental mishaps!
- The size design has also constructed the deck into an anytime-anywhere game, and it can be held by children of any age.
- Highly educational as young kids learn about different numbers and colors, and also alert kids' brains to keep their brains sharp and keep their guard up throughout the game.
- Works as a really attractive present, so it makes a perfect gift for a learning child.
The Monster Memory Match card game helps your child to learn about different colors and teach them about numbers, reading, and matching to keep mind sharp while having fun at the same time.
The Crazy 8's card game provides an exceptional excitement and challenging spirit that can be played even in the backseat of your car!
It is a quick thinking, fast-acting card game. This game can be played by a wide range of family sizes all around the world.
Key features- Amazing game for kids with a bright and imaginative mind, owing to the colorful and alluring pictures on the deck.
- Includes 48 card deck and simple instructions.
- Very fun and straightforward game, so an explanation of the rules will not take more than 2 minutes.
- Creates a sense of challenge that ignites the competitive spirit in the players.
- Can be played by 4-year olds and above, with a minimum requirement of 2 players, making this an all-family game.
- Introduces to classic card games to learn about numbers, pairs, counting, how to hold cards, deal, and taking turns.
This card games provide countless benefit including improved concentration, vocabulary, train visual memory, classify and differentiate objects. Replay creates chances to develop socialization, cognitive skills, and improve emotional well being.
Guess Who? game is the best even during travels and picnics.
The card game is a great mystery that inculcates a deductive spirit in the child. It involves questioning, and a lot of thinking and deduction, so it is educational in aspects of logic and reasoning.
Key features- Quick and exciting game.
- Keeps children entertained even during long boring travels.
- Involves questioning and logical reasoning that improves analytical thinking.
- Best present for families whose children are above 4 years.
- Includes 24 mystery cards, 48 face cards, 10 scoring pegs, and instructions.
This game is interactive and brings loads of fun as they ask yes or no questions about mystery characters.
Each player takes turns to guess opponent’s mystery character and make a guess. If the guess is wrong, the player loses the game.
The first player to win 5 games is the champion.
Kids Against Maturity is the best parental aid to reflect on your children as well as activate a fun gaming experience.
With some humor and excitement, this game is really enjoyable for kids of all ages. The fun is enhanced with players being 4 or more in total.
Key features- Can be played anytime and anywhere.
- Unites the family with the universal language of laughter.
- Become on the offensive side where a parent who doesn't enjoy dumb toilet jokes and flatulence humor can become offended and thereby not approve of it. This can be saved by removing cards that aren't fit your taste.
- Includes 500 question and answer cards.
- Playtime lasts 30 to 90 minutes.
Each player is dealt 10 white answer cards and takes turns asking the blue question cards.
The player who ask questions selects the funniest answer. Whoever with the highest amount of most hilarious responses, wins the game.
The Skip-Bo Junior is best described as a simplified UNO that is both strategic and exciting.
It covers a wide range of families as the age requirement is 5 years and older. This game teaches children new skill and strategy by creating sequential stacks of cards.
Key features- 2 or more players and age appropriately.
- The graphic designs are child-friendly and attractive.
- Improves strategical thinking of kids.
- Includes 80 number cards, 16 wild cards, and instructions.
- For a longer game, deal additional cards, and less cards can be dealt for a shorter game.
The goal of this game is to get rid of the cards in your pile by building 4 piles in numerical sequence from 1 to 10 in the center of the playing area. The first player to discard all of their stockpile cards wins.
Similar to the original Skip-Bo game, the rules are easy to understand and play.
Kids Card Games: Conclusion
Card games are compact, portable, educational, and filled with laughter.
They are great introductory games for young children to hold cards and use eye and hand coordination. Also, card games enhance social skills such as communicating, endurance, interaction, and discipline.
These kid friendly card games are educational, so every child can learn number and shape recognition, grouping, and counting. These basic math and language skills can introduce children in early childhood development.
In addition, playing card games creates focus and engages memory to result in healthy competition.
There are so many fun card games specifically targeted towards children. These are great introductory games to classic card games such as Skip-Bo, Old Maid, or Slap Jack that can be played as whole family.
Enjoy playing card games for kids to build relationship, learn new skills and have a fun time together with the little ones!