Skip Bo, Monopoly Deal, The Game of Life Adventures, UNO, Sevens, QWitch and Old Maid are some of the fun card game ideas for kids.

Vacation time? Bored? No problem! Here are some games that will help you spend time with your kids and have loads of fun!

7  Fun and Easy Card Game Ideas for Kids

1. Skip Bo

A commercial Spite and Mallice card game, Skip Bo was produced as a boxed edition by Minnie Hazel “Skip” Bowman from Brownfield, Texas. It was later bought by International Games in 1980 and subsequently by Mattel in 1992. There is also a mobile version of the game, released for Ios in September 2013 by Magmic. And then there is the new version called “Skip Bo Mod” which comes in a blue and white case.

Card and Deck

There are 162 cards in each deck, consisting of numbers from 1 to 12 and 18 “Skip-Bo” wild cards, which could be played as any number. It could also be played as a regular card game with numbers 1 to 12 being Ace to Queen and the Kings and Jokers corresponding to “Skip-Bo” wild cards. Back in the ‘70s, the game of Skip-Bo was quite different. It was played using decks of regular cards with two joker cards being replaced by eight “Skip-Bo” cards in each deck. Additionally, the aces, twos and threes in the fourth deck were also marked “Skip-Bo” with the rest of the fourth deck being discarded.

Game Play

The game allows for a maximum of two to four players playing individually or no more than six players playing in groups (three in a team). Each player has a hand of five cards and a total of 30 cards are dealt. The remaining cards are put face down, which forms the common draw pile. The players also have their own discard piles.

Each player draws cards from this pile, so as to have a total of five cards in hand. They can then play either the next sequential card or a skip-bo card, using any of their four discard piles, their stock pile’s top card or any of the cards in their hands. As the play goes on, and the build pile reaches 12, it is then removed from the board. That space from which the cards are removed becomes empty and another pile can be started. The play goes on until one player, who remains, has played their final card.

Scoring

• The scoring is quite simple for single rounds. Whosoever gets out first, wins. Simple as that.
• The complexity of the scoring increases for multiple games. You either track the number of times each player wins or use a point system in its place.
• As far as points are concerned, the winner receives 25 points and an additional 5 points each for every card in their opponents’ stock piles.
• The game culminates with one player reaching 500 points first.
• Partnership as an alternative gameplay

The aforementioned lines state that this game can also be played in teams. All gameplay remains the same, except for the fact that each partnership must have two stockpiles and four discard piles, two sets each, which makes a total of eight discard piles.

In addition to their own stock and discard piles, the active player can also use their partner’s stock and discard piles.

Also, the active player’s partner(s) must remain silent during their turn.

Read More: 31 Best Board Games for Children

2. Monopoly Deal

The name does ring a bell, doesn’t it? Yep! It is a card game derived from that very board game, Monopoly.

In this game, just like Monopoly, each player must attempt to collect three variants of complete card sets, which represent properties similar to the board game, either by directly playing them, taking it off of other players or collecting them as rent for owned properties.

It is a 110-card deck which represents various properties, wild cards, denominations of money and special action cards, which are played to use their effects or can be cashed in.

Read More: 11 Best Running Games for Your Child

3. The game of life adventures

This is a revamp of the classic card game “The game of life.” It was created by Rob Daviau and later published by Hasbro in 2002. The objective here is to get as many points as you can before the letters L.I.F.E. popup. At the start of the game, every player must decide whether to get a career straight away or go to college before they can start with one. Each player then completes goals, which can be completed either by investing in money or time.

Every player has as much time and money as their career allows, in every turn. And each goal has a value or point associated with it. The player with the most points wins.

However, the new version, that is, the game of life: Adventures is a bit different. In this version, the board can be spun, so as to change some sections to confuse other players. And then there are also planes, islands, refreshed graphics, new jobs and a whole bunch of other cool stuff, but nonetheless, the objective of the game remains the same.

Read More: 51 Math Games for Kids (6yrs and above)

4. UNO

UNO is an American shedding-type card game, developed in 1971 by Merle Robbins in Reading, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. It has been owned by Mattel since 1992.

Rules of the game

With an aim to be the first to score 500 points, which is usually achieved by a player emptying his hand, of cards and gaining points which is equal to the number of cards remaining in each player’s hand, this game sure is fun for a lot of kids.

The deck, consisting of 108 cards, 25 of which are of the colors red, green, yellow and blue. Each card also consists of ranks from 0 to 9 and a couple of special cards such as “Skip”, “Draw Two”, “Wild”, “Wild Draw Four” and “Reverse” cards.

Each game starts with all the players having seven cards each in their hands. The player to the dealer’s left starts off. Each player must play the corresponding number or color card, which is the same as the one in the discard pile. Additionally, the players can also play “Wild Cards” if they happened to possess one. If a player doesn’t have either the number or the color card, they must draw a card from the stockpile.

The game ends when one or all the players have no cards left in their hand. The first player to do so wins.

Read More: 10 Interesting Games for Babies

5. Sevens

This game, also known as ‘Seven up Seven down’, ‘Laying out sevens’, ‘Fan Tan’, ‘Crazy Sevens’, ‘Parliament’ or ‘Yuto’ is a card game for players ranging from three to seven and is played using a standard deck of 52 cards.

Rules

All the cards are dealt among the players (not equally though). The one who owns a seven of hearts starts off with the game. The others follow suit in a similar manner, following which, the cards are added in a sequential order, down to the ace and up to the king. A player passes when he cannot place a card.

The game is suited for all ages. Even for children. Scoring can be done by just counting the number of cards in each player’s hand.

Read More: Fun at Home Toddler activities and Games

6. QWitch

Speed is everything in this game. The game is simple. Be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand and you’re done. Each card has both letters and numbers ranging from A-G and 1-8 respectively. You can use either the number or letter to play a card, depending on the die roll, either which is the same, greater or lesser ranked than the card that was previously played.

There are no turns and each player races to be ahead. The special die determines whether you go up or down. The set is finite, beginning with A-1 and ending with H-8. It should also be noted that matching is a challenge just as much as continuing the sequence is.

7. Old Maid

A Victorian era card game designed for two or more players, this game is probably derived from an ancient gambling game in which the loser has to pay for the drinks.

Although there are a specific set of cards for this game, the game can be played just as well with the regular 52-card deck. In a regular deck, one card is either added or removed, which results in one unmatched card. The objective is to draw a card at random and see if it matches any other card in hand. The player who is stuck with one card, that is the “old maid” is the loser.

In all, these games are not only fun for kids but also help in building a number of skills such as counting, strategy and patterns. They are the perfect thing for travel. To have some fun on the go.

Read More: 15 Fun Car Game Ideas for kids