Card Games for Kids

This book, Crazy Eights and Other Card Games, is full of fun ideas for bringing kids and cards together. (Funny, I just realized this book is co-authored by Joanna Cole - the same author of last week's book pick.)

Our favorite card game from the book is called Pig. It's a simplified version of Spoons.

Directions: (slightly edited from the book's version)

3-13 players
Object: Get four cards of the same suit in your hand

1. Make a special deck of cards with four cards of the same suit for each player. (Example: If there are three players, make a deck with four hearts, four diamonds, and four spades.)
2. Shuffle and deal out all the cards.
3. Players look at their cards. If a player had four of the same suit dealt to him, he automatically wins.
4. If no one has four of the same suit, everyone discards one card face down to the person on their left.
5. Each player picks up their new card and adds it to their hand.
   
6. Repeat steps four and five until someone gets four of the same suit. This person is the winner.

It took the girls a couple rounds to get the hang and the flow of the game. They might have three hearts and a diamond in their hand, and then discard one of their hearts. I had to explain a little bit of strategy, "Pick the suit you want to collect and save those. Discard anything else."

We played one round where everyone showed their cards, and we talked about the best suit to collect based on what each of us were dealt. We walked through each step of the game together, and all three of us won at exactly the same time.