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Games are great fun and can sneakily teach kids important skills too. We tried two fantastic family games from Jaques of London to see how they fared.
We love a family games session in my house. It’s great for bonding time, and giving the kids some quality time with us parents. We also find it’s great for practicing sharing, turn taking and general social interactions.
Quality family time with Jaques of London
Jaques of London is a family-founded, family-run business. In fact it’s the oldest games company in the world! And that foundation of being a family is still really important to the company. It’s ethos is built on the power of play and the importance of family time.
Jaques of London make a range of brilliant games for the young and young and heart. They even invented a lot of them themselves including Happy Families and Croquet. They have wooden games, indoor games, outdoor games – you name it, Jaques of London are on it.
Jaques of London Giant Tumbling Tower/Garden Tumble Tower
As a child I can remember maybe gripping games of this with my siblings – and quite a bit of cheating too, if my memory serves me correctly. So I was really keen to give the giant tumbling tower a go with my kids.
This version is on a large scale – it’s 3ft tall when constructed – which is really good for younger kids as it makes it slightly easier. My kids loved it, and got really excited with the anticipation of when the tower would finally cave.
This tumbling tower game is made for outdoor play – but you can use it inside too, of course. It’s handmade from New Zealand pine, and everything is sustainably sourced. There are 63 blocks and it comes in a really useful canvas carry bag, so you can keep it all together in the garden shed.
Jaques of London Bingo Set
This is a full bingo set game with reusable cards, allowing you and your family and friends to enjoy bingo night at home. The set comes with bingo cards, numbers, pens, bingo ball, bingo roller ball, and a handy drawstring storage bag to keep it all in.
My older kids loved this game. It was great for practicing number recognition with them in a really fun way – they didn’t even realise they were learning. It also taught them about good sporting behaviour as they congratulated each other on their fiercely fought wins!
The set is really durable and it feels really high quality – not at all flimsy so you could genuinely use this set again and again. Plus it comes with six pens, so there’s plenty to go around even a larger family such as mine. We had loads of fun teaching our kids the traditional bingo calls, and then making up our own too!
We think at £9.99 that’s brilliant value for a night in with the family. Maybe you could have a star prize such as the winner gets to pick the next movie for family movie night?!