Saturday

10 Easy Games to Play on FaceTime & Zoom with Kids



Are you stuck in the house?

Are you are confined to home?

                             or just a long way away from your grandchildren? 

 Then you probably need some good games to play together 

                            when Face Timing or on a Zoom Call with your grandchildren.





If So  

THEN 

This is the place to find

10 Easy Games to Play with Kids on Face Time or Zoom.



Previously in   10 Easy Ideas for Face Timing with Kids   we talked about how when we are having to face time our young kids so often instead of visiting them or having them round to our homes we can't just talk all the time we need to be more interactive and in that post we had 10 great ideas which we had tried and tested with our grandkids.

One of those 10 Easy Ideas was to play a game together.

So in this post I am going to help you by suggesting 10 Easy Games and then from that you can think up others by just using variations of these ideas.


So here we go with

10 Easy Games to Play on Face time or Zoom with young Kids





1.  X & O's

Our first easy game to play together is the first game nearly anyone learns - X & O's.

Our daughter-in-law is good at sewing and has had some good creative ideas that she has made for the grandkids.

One of these is a material form of this game which she can put into a bag along with the usual books and paper and crayons we have all carried in our bags at different times when we took the kids out in the car or to a restaurant etc.

But of course you don't need to have anything as good as that.

If you are using Zoom then you can bring up the whiteboard on your Zoom call and use it for playing hangman. 

Or if using Face Time just use paper and felt tip pen  (shows up better over the screens) and some paper and some way of propping up the paper.

then you just need the kids to direct you as to where they want their X or O to go each time.


Just before we went into lock down I had found a great laptop stand which I can adjust the angle and height of and it has been used for most of our face times either to hold up a book we are reading or a paper pad as I draw things.
I got it on marketplace for a third of the normal price.









You can also switch over and let the kids do the drawing or placing for you to play the game.







2.  Hangman


Our second easy game to play together is the pencil and paper game of Hangman.

Again just like X & O's you can use the whiteboard on Zoom or paper and pen on face time.

Of course you will need to use a felt tip again to show up well for the kids and remember to write clearly and larger than normal to make it easy to see.



Depending on the age of the kids you can have them take turns at seeing if they hang you in the game.





3.  Bingo


Our third easy game to play together is the very well-known game of Bingo.

If you have a bingo game at home then you have a popper for getting the numbers so you can play the usual number bingo.

But most people may not have a bingo set so you can simply play picture bingo instead.

You simply need the following:

6 or 8 bingo cards 
Each card is square and has a grid of 9 small squares on it in 3x3 formation and each square has a different picture.
Make sure that you have NO identical cards  ie. no 2 bingo cards have the same 9 pictures.

15 -18 picture cards 
Small card squares - 1 of each of the different pictures you have on the Bingo cards.

9 blank card squares for each person playing
These are for covering the pictures on the Bingo cards as they are picked out


I would suggest a theme like Easter, Christmas, Flowers, Cars or whatever you know the kids like.

The theme will also depend on the ages of the children.

Simply prepare the boards and cards on the computer using clip art and have the kids or their parents print out the boards and you print out the small cards.







Of course you can have the same bingo cards each time or you can switch it up with different pictures on different themes or even have letter bingo.





4.  Guess the Song Game

Our fourth easy to play game is one that is more fun sometimes when the adults are doing the guessing because it can be harder for us.


Guess the song can be played in a few different ways:

  • Adult plays part of the tune on guitar or piano or any instrument & the children guess the song.
  • Adult hums part of the song and the children guess the song.
  • Adult says some of the words from the middle of the song and the children guess the song.
  • Swap round the roles of adult and children.


Another version can be to pick a theme and see who can think of the most songs about it.

ie. Goodness
Giving you songs like -
God is so good.    He's a good good father,    Lord you've really been good to me.



With Kids you can end up learning a new song from them or taking the opportunity to introduce them to a new song.


Check out my  RESOURCE LIBRARY  for help with new kids songs 
and also my
DEVOTIONALS PAGE  for ideas of worship songs.




5.  Scavenger Hunt 

Our fifth easy game is one that needs a little planning in advance.

Make a list of items that you know the children will be able to find in the house.

Then
a)  they can each be instructed to see who can be the first to find the item - being told one item at a time
b)  they can work together to find the item and see how fast they can do it
c)  they can work together and compete against grandad with nanny having made out the list of items


Again this game can been done around themes like
  • colours - find a blue item 
  • numbers - find 4 books
  • letters - find any item that starts with B




If the weather is good and the parents don't mind them running in and out you can also take the garden as a theme and have them find things there.









6.  Charades

Our sixth easy game also needs a little planning in advance.

Sit down sometime and make lists of

  • Cartoons
  • Book Titles
  • People
  • Song Titles
  • Animals
  • Bible Characters


or anything else you can think of that the children know and your lists will keep you going for several face times together.


Just plan with their mum or dad in advance for them to help the kids make a list too so that you have to do the guessing and not just the kids.






7.  Guess the Book Title or Character Name 

Our seventh game is easy to play at any time.

Again use the whiteboard if on Zoom or use pen and paper on face time.


You can play it in two ways

a)  Like "Pictionary"  -  one person draws and the other one guesses

You can use the suggestions from Pictionary if you have it but making them up may be much more fun and personal.







b)  Like "Who Am I?"  -  one person has to ask questions to try to work out who the other person is and the other one answers and see if the questioner can guess the title or name in less than 20 questions.

Again you can make it very personal by picking family members, teachers, friends as well as TV & cartoon characters or characters from their favourite books.



So this actually gives you two games instead of one.






8.  Easy board game


Our eighth game is easy for one lot to play because only the people in one of the locations have to do all the work.

Get the kids to pick one of their easy board games like snakes and ladders and play it together.

This takes no preparation and no planning - they choose the game and they have to get it out and do all the dice throwing and moving of pieces for you as well as for themselves.


A good way of having some laughs when they deliberately try to make sure you don't get where you want to be etc.

A great example is Snakes and Ladders




Also can be good for teaching them to be honest and helpful when they would be tempted to cheat.



Or perhaps they would choose to play something they like to play in your house and then you have all the work to do.










9.  Hide & Seek

Our ninth game is almost the easiest to play at any time.

No set up, no list making, no printing out cards, no real hard thinking to be done.

If your grandkids are like ours then they will love to play hide and seek.

It does however need someone to move around with the phone or tablet when the kids are hiding so that you can see the locations in their home.


This is a bit like Hunt the Bear that is mentioned in  10 Easy Ideas for Face Timing with Kids  except that I don't think either Fred or I would fit in the many places that our bear Charmin has found to hide without being extremely noticable.









10.  Concentration Games

Our grandkids love Concentration or Matching Games and so do I.

If you do not have any such games it is easy enough to make some yourself.


You can use photos of the family:

  • print out two copies of as many pictures as you think the kids could manage
  • get some card
  • cut out the faces from the pictures
  • stick them on the card
  • cut them out in squares of the card making sure the squares are all the same size


To play:

  • place the cards face down on the table
  • each person takes it in turn to choose 2 cards
  • if the pictures match they keep the pair
  • if the pictures don't match they are returned to their place on the table
  • the winner is the one with the most pairs
  • you will of course have to do all the lifting and returning to place and showing of the cards to the children



OR

Let the children take charge at their end of the call and use a matching game they already have.





Other ideas would be to get pictures of musical instruments, cartoon characters, animals, shapes, numbers, letters, colours etc.







PLUS

                    let's not forget

Educational Games


find out from mum and dad if there are any particular things the kids are learning from school based lessons or homeschooling etc. that they need a wee bit of extra help on
 and incorporate those into a game.