Our Top Four Favorite Games for Family Meals
The benefits of family dinner have been well documented over the years: they improve academic performance and self-esteem, and reduce obesity. But did you know family dinners can also be super fun? Games at mealtime bring an opportunity to connect with your kids. And, laugh!
And, if you’ve got a picky eater, the last thing you want to do is obsess about what they are eating, or not eating, at dinner. This is will only stress you and your child out, which (surprise!) leads to more picky eating. Instead, try focusing on the joy of connecting and building trust with your kids. (We’ll add another article soon on easy tips to get your kids to try new foods.)
Here are four dinner games and free activities we love to play with our families. Try one of these and let us know what you think!
Game 1: Acrostic Poem of the Day
My family started playing this activity when the pandemic started. I’m pretty sure we made it up ourselves. In the early days of the lock down, we were all together, all day long. So, when we sat down at the table for dinner, it felt a little weird to ask, “How was your day?” Because didn’t I just observe their entire day from 8 feet away?
So, we started a new game to get the conversation going: Acrostic Poem of the Day!
An acrostic poem, as you may recall from this childhood song, is where the letters in each line spell out a certain word. So, if it’s M-O-N-D-A-Y, the first person at the table shares one thing about their day that was unique- but it HAS to start with an M.
Example for Monday:
Person #1: M: Making cookies! Today I made cookies with mom! They got burnt, but we still ate them.
Person #2: O: Ouch! I hurt my foot playing soccer.
Person #3: N: Napping! After lunch, I snuck into my office and took a 5 minute nap before my meeting and someone walked in and found me drooling on my keyboard.
Person #4: D: Dog! I fed the dog without anyone asking. Did you notice? I’m getting really good at that!
Keep going until you spell the day. You won’t believe the weird stuff you will learn about each other. It will also help you recall some interesting stuff about your own day!
Game 2: Celebrity
One of my favorite cookbooks is The Family Dinner by Laurie David. There are a ton of reasons I love this book. It’s full of recipes that we use over and over, it has great tips about how to think and talk about food in a joyful and positive way, and it has a whole section dedicated to dinner games!
David recommends this game after dinner, as a way to extend your time around the table. I love this game so much because you have to be very descriptive with your words if you want your team to guess correctly and win.
What You Need:
Scraps of paper, pen, bowl, and timer
Instructions:
The group chooses one topic to be the theme of the night. For example, the topic could be food, celebrities, vacation spots, TV shows, school subjects, etc.
Once the topic is chosen, everyone writes down as many things as they can think of pertaining to that one topic on each scrap of paper. For example, if the topic was celebrities, I would write down as many celebrities as I know on each scrap of paper. If the topic was school subjects, then I would write down as many school subjects as I know.
Fold up the scraps of paper and put them into the bowl in the center of the table.
Split into 2 teams; each team will take a turn.
One player on the team will reach into the bowl and pick a scrap of paper, and silently read the word. Then, this person describes the word to the other teammates without actually saying the word.
Set the timer to one minute - this will be all the time that teammates have to describe as many different things as they can from the bowl.
If the team guesses the word correctly, they keep the scrap of paper. If they don’t guess the word correctly before the timer goes off, the paper goes back into the bowl.
Once the timer goes off, it is the other team’s turn to guess from the bowl.
When all the names have been used, teams will count all the slips of paper guessed correctly. The team with the most correct guesses at the end of the round will be crowned the winner.
Game #3: First Line
Growing up, my dad always told stories at bedtime. The stories always started with the same characters, but he always put them in the most bizarre situations and adventures. To continue this tradition, we began telling stories at dinner time. But here’s the trick- everyone only gets one line, and it has to end after a certain number of loops around the table.
Instructions:
Write a few “first lines” ahead of time and put them in a bowl.
One person reads the line, and then adds one more line.
The next person adds a line, and so on until it goes around the table.
The person who started the story will end the story. Note: science fiction and imagination go a long way in making these stories work.
First Line Examples:
All of a sudden, an elephant walked into the kitchen. And then,...
A little boy looked in the hole and saw something glowing! And then,...
The mom woke up and realized she was not in her bed- but in the middle of a forest! And then,...
If your children are young, they may just add a weird noise or nonsensical sentence. Just roll with it, and they’ll figure it out eventually!
Game #4: Family Jeopardy
Our kids were hooked on Amy Schneider’s recent jeopardy streak. So, of course - we started playing our own version at dinner - Family Jeopardy!
How well do you know your kids? And… how well do they know you? Family Jeopardy is a great way to find all sorts of fun facts about your family.
No need to keep track of points for this version, unless you’re just competitive like that. If you really want to get serious, you can create a board with categories and points.
Remember, one family member will need to be Alex Trebek and ask all the questions! Remember, the answers must come in the form of questions!
Examples for Grown-ups:
The city Mom was born in
Where your grandmother graduated college
The name of Dad’s first dog
The vegetable that we had for dinner on Monday
Examples for Kids:
The last game Gabby watched
Latisha’s favorite after school snack
The last book Joe read
Jamie’s favorite animal
These are just four easy games to play at meals with kids. You can make up your own activities to do with the kids at mealtime. As long as you’re having fun at dinner, you’re doing it right! Follow @smallbitesclub for more.