Card games are a great way to pass the time and can be passed down from generation to generation.
My family played all kinds of card games and I’m now passing those games down to my kids and they love them!
Here are some of my favorite card games:
Slap Jack
Cards are divided between the players and then everyone turns their cards over quickly into a center pile.
If a Jack comes up, the first person to Slap the Jack gets the entire pile in the middle added to their cards.
The person who ends up with all the cards wins.
War
Again, this is played with a regular deck of cards that’s divided between all players.
Each person turns over a card at the same time and the person with the highest card collects all the cards from the round.
If two cards that are turned over are the same, the two players go to war by turning one card upside down and the next card up.
The highest card wins all the cards, including the ones that were turned down.
The game ends when one person has all the cards and that person is, of course, the winner.
Go Fish
You can buy special decks of Go Fish cards for you to play with younger children.
This game will help kids learn to match cards and it’s great fun for younger children to play.
Each player gets 5 cards and the remainder of the deck is placed in the middle.
The first player turns to an opponent and asks them to give them a specific card they need to match with ones they have in their hand.
If the opponent does not have the card, then they tell the person to ‘Go Fish’.
What this means is that they must take a card from the deck in the middle.
If a player that ‘goes fishing’ matches cards, then they place the pair down in front of them.
Once the deck is gone, the game ends and the person with the most pairs wins.
Old Maid
You can buy a special deck of cards just for this game as well. All the cards are dealt out evenly to all the players.
To start, each player removes any pairs from their hand.
Everyone then holds their cards facing towards them and each player takes turns picking a card from the opponent’s hand in the hopes of matching the card they pick with one in their hand.
The object is to avoid picking the Old Maid!
Each time someone successfully matches a pair, they place the pair on the table.
The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards and not be left with the Old Maid card.
If you’re playing this game with a regular deck of cards, simply remove one of the queens so that you’re playing with only 51 cards in total.
The player left with the odd queen at the end of the game is the Old Maid.
No child wants to get stuck with the Old Maid at the end of the game and so they’ll have lots of fun trying to get rid of it!
Cribbage
I’ve been playing crib since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
It was one of my grandpa’s favorite games and he loved teaching all his grandchildren how to play. He taught us early and we played often.
All you need is a regular deck of cards and a crib board.
Crib can be played with 2 or 4 players and the object of the game is to be the first to get your peg to the finish, which is the last hole on the board.
In addition to being fun, crib is also a great way for younger kids to learn basic math.
There are all kinds of travel crib boards available today so it’s a great game to take with you when you’re on the go.
Those are my favorite card games but other card games include solitaire, hearts, spades, gin rummy, poker and many more.
If you teach your children the card games you know and love when they’re young, chances are those games will be passed down to your grandchildren and great grandchildren.
What a wonderful legacy!