4 Board Games To Keep the Family Occupied

Sheltering in place, social distancing, and self-quarantine with your family is fun, right? 

Homeschooling all day. Eating dinner together. Movies as a family. It's all a good time. 

Until it's not. But you still have to stay home together. 

This is the challenge of the global pandemic we face: Can we entertain ourselves at home?

When you can't stand the sound of video games, your brains are atrophied from watching movies, and the silence of reading has you climbing the walls, you need board games. 

Here are a few that will help you pass the time and have you all laughing, learning, and forgetting about going out for pizza.

Fluxx is Uno that the kids will love.

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Fluxx ($13.49) is the kind of fun you remember from playing Uno as a kid, but it's got a spin your kids will love. 

Everyone gets cards and takes turns, but the game evolves as you play. It's fun. It's full of laughs. 

Even the young kids can manage it (if someone reads for them), and you can get a version of it to suit whatever obsession rules in your family: Star Fluxx ($14.49), Nature Fluxx ($13.49), Star Trek Fluxx ($20.95), and many others.

The kids want video games. Give them Jenga: Fortnite Edition.

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Jenga is a classic for a reason: It's fun! 

So when the kids are insisting on video games, offer them Fortnite and then do a bait-and-switch and make it Jenga: Fortnite Edition ($17.99). 

They will come to the game table for your con and stay for the challenge of not letting that stack of wooden pieces fall and the screaming tension that is Jenga.

When you want to move on to playing something more difficult, the littles can play with the Jenga blocks.

You can't leave the house, but you can play a game that travels.

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You're all stuck in the house. So just as when starving people talk incessantly about food, now is a great time to talk about travel. 

Ticket to Ride ($44.99) will get you started.

You're trying to build railroads to connect distant cities across the country in this in-depth game that will get your video-game-loving kids (8 and older, though it's easy) on board for playing more complex board games.

It's pretty, nice quality, and considered a gateway to much more involved board games and escape rooms. You might end up starting an obsession.

These kittens are not only cute -- they explode.

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Exploding Kittens ($19.99) is simple enough to play with small children, but it's thrilling enough that older kids will have a blast, too. 

It's a card game where you don't want to be left holding the kitten that explodes. 

As you go round the game, tensions build because — eventually — someone is going to have fur on their face.