Fun Family Games to Play on Zoom

Life certainly looks a lot different right now, and finding ways to connect with others is so important. A couple friends and I joined together to plan, and then play, a series of “mini games” over Zoom.
It was SO much fun I thought I would lay it all out here for those who would like to do something similar.

Most of these can be adapted for any scenario, but these were played, and instructions are written out, as if there are two (or more!) players per team. You can have entire families playing on a team, or just couples play after kids are in bed.

In addition to my list, these Best seller Games from Amazon are highly rated – and many of them can be played together but from a distance and the list is reflecting what is best selling at the moment – so reviews are relevant and helpful for determining which can be played well via Zoom.

You will need a “host” to run the games and keep things moving along. When my friends and I first played we alternated hosting – each one of us ran three games. The host was able to play along with her family.
I also played these “mini games” where I played the role of host and three teams played against each other.

Pick and choose from among the games, don’t feel you need to do them all!
And if there are many more teams I would cut down on how many games are played, as each additional team will add extra time to the game.

Game to Play on Zoom

Scoring

Give teams 2 minutes to make their own personal protective gear masks from supplies around the house. We required each team to create two unique masks, and you got to roll the die for each unique mask (so, if team 1 and team 2 both had a paper plate mask, neither would score.)

https://www.amazon.com/promocode/A3KLVFNAZ2N7AT?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1524210774301&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pr4&tag=laisi-20&linkId=1a10e1aa38c44bd820491712b6b136d7

Find Five

Teams have to stay within the eye of their video camera (so you always had to be able to see them!) and find five items that would fit in the hand of one player that was the same color as the youngest players shirt. 
Each unique item gets 1 roll, but if I did it again I would score based on which team was sitting back in their seat holding all 5 items (first team gets 3 rolls, second team gets two rolls, third team gets one roll.)

Make up a song about this pandemic.

Have a jar with common tunes prewritten down, and at the beginning of this game randomly draw a tune.
You have three minutes to write a thirty second song about life right now – social isolation, the lack of tp, anything! – and then present the song to the group. One roll given for each verse in the song. 

Charades.

Have an assortment of general topics written down (a Bible story, favorite family movie, favorite summer activity, etc) and then draw the topic and read it to all the teams.
Each team can mute their mic and take a couple minutes to think of what their answer would be and come up with how they’d act it out.
Each team acts out their specific answer one team at a time.
Guessing teams write their guess down and held it up at the same time.
Each correct guess got a roll. 

Selfie Fun

This is another silly game to get the team moving and doing something fun together.

Each team has to take a selfie of themselves in a place in the house they haven’t all been in at once before. (we squished in our pantry! another did the shower.) 
Because we were using zoom on computers, we took our phones with us and took a picture and came back and showed the picture on our phone to the group. Participating got you a roll. 

Talent Show

The whole team has to participate in a talent show, with each member doing something. Give yourselves a minute or two to plan and thirty seconds to perform. Participating got you a roll. 

Build a fort

This is another one that is mostly for the teams themselves to have fun with their teammates, but then they get to show off their work to all the other teams.
You must stay in the room you are in and build a fort the whole team can fit in. Again, just take a selfie and show it on the computer. We found it was too hard to see from the computer video. Participating got you a roll.

Newly weds style game –

If there are more than two players per team you will need to pick, prior to each round, who the two players from each team will be – parents against each other, kids against each other, or parent against child, etc.
Read the question out loud and the two participants from each team writes down their own answer without letting anyone on their team see.
When called upon, the two participants from the same team reveal their answers to the question by holding up their written answer to the camera. If they match they get a roll of the die. If they do not match, no points. Move on to collect the answers from all the teams, then do more questions.
Here are the questions I did:

(Between the two team mates playing against each other)
Who would win at a game of monopoly?
Who is (or, for kids!, will be) a better driver?
Who has better hand writing?

(About the youngest team mate playing)
What is their favorite breakfast?
If they could only plant one vegetable, what would it be?
What have they missed the most because of the stay at home order?

(About the oldest team mate playing)
What is their favorite book?
What is their favorite pizza topping?
What time do they go to bed?

Codenames

Have you played the board game codenames? It is one our family really enjoys. We had been talking about turning our own cards into a virutal game to play on zoom with friends, but it looks like someone has already made an online version! We haven’t played it yet, but if you are familiar with Codenames already and are somewhat familiar with zoom you will be able to get it to work!

Hope these family games to play on Zoom are helpful and fun!

Other posts of Interest

Favorite Family Games for Game Night

Awesome Book Ideas for the Kids on Your Christmas List

Something to Do – a build your own stay at home fun/expectation manager 

Gift Ideas for the Creative Mom

 

We chose to keep a score, but made it very simple. Each family supplied their own die. If your family “won” (term used loosely) you got to roll the die 1x and write down that number. Each win gets you one roll and you add up your own score. This was very simple and do-able. A couple times throughout we had the families announce what their score was. But no one knew what other families were rolling. 

“House Arrest” Scattergories 

This has been my favorite to play as you get to learn so many fun things about your friends and what they are going through during this time!!

Explain the rules and then screen cast the questions so everyone can see them. Have all teams read through the questions and then roll a letter dice OR draw a scrabble letter to determine which letter of the alphabet all the questions must be answered with.

All answers must start with the specified letter.
Teams will score ZERO for answers that another team also gives.
For each unique answer you get to roll the die 1x.
You cannot have more than one answer per question, and answers cannot be used a second time under a different question.
Pay attention if the category involves the team or just one member.
For an answer to qualify, it has to have occurred since we started staying home … “house arrest.”
Write your corresponding answers down on a piece of paper.

Make your own protective gear mask

This game gets the teams working together to do something fun and silly, and then draws them back together on the screen to show all the other teams.

Give teams 2 minutes to make their own personal protective gear masks from supplies around the house. We required each team to create two unique masks, and you got to roll the die for each unique mask (so, if team 1 and team 2 both had a paper plate mask, neither would score.)

https://www.amazon.com/promocode/A3KLVFNAZ2N7AT?ref_=assoc_tag_ph_1524210774301&_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=pr4&tag=laisi-20&linkId=1a10e1aa38c44bd820491712b6b136d7

Find Five

Teams have to stay within the eye of their video camera (so you always had to be able to see them!) and find five items that would fit in the hand of one player that was the same color as the youngest players shirt. 
Each unique item gets 1 roll, but if I did it again I would score based on which team was sitting back in their seat holding all 5 items (first team gets 3 rolls, second team gets two rolls, third team gets one roll.)

Make up a song about this pandemic.

Have a jar with common tunes prewritten down, and at the beginning of this game randomly draw a tune.
You have three minutes to write a thirty second song about life right now – social isolation, the lack of tp, anything! – and then present the song to the group. One roll given for each verse in the song. 

Charades.

Have an assortment of general topics written down (a Bible story, favorite family movie, favorite summer activity, etc) and then draw the topic and read it to all the teams.
Each team can mute their mic and take a couple minutes to think of what their answer would be and come up with how they’d act it out.
Each team acts out their specific answer one team at a time.
Guessing teams write their guess down and held it up at the same time.
Each correct guess got a roll. 

Selfie Fun

This is another silly game to get the team moving and doing something fun together.

Each team has to take a selfie of themselves in a place in the house they haven’t all been in at once before. (we squished in our pantry! another did the shower.) 
Because we were using zoom on computers, we took our phones with us and took a picture and came back and showed the picture on our phone to the group. Participating got you a roll. 

Talent Show

The whole team has to participate in a talent show, with each member doing something. Give yourselves a minute or two to plan and thirty seconds to perform. Participating got you a roll. 

Build a fort

This is another one that is mostly for the teams themselves to have fun with their teammates, but then they get to show off their work to all the other teams.
You must stay in the room you are in and build a fort the whole team can fit in. Again, just take a selfie and show it on the computer. We found it was too hard to see from the computer video. Participating got you a roll.

Newly weds style game –

If there are more than two players per team you will need to pick, prior to each round, who the two players from each team will be – parents against each other, kids against each other, or parent against child, etc.
Read the question out loud and the two participants from each team writes down their own answer without letting anyone on their team see.
When called upon, the two participants from the same team reveal their answers to the question by holding up their written answer to the camera. If they match they get a roll of the die. If they do not match, no points. Move on to collect the answers from all the teams, then do more questions.
Here are the questions I did:

(Between the two team mates playing against each other)
Who would win at a game of monopoly?
Who is (or, for kids!, will be) a better driver?
Who has better hand writing?

(About the youngest team mate playing)
What is their favorite breakfast?
If they could only plant one vegetable, what would it be?
What have they missed the most because of the stay at home order?

(About the oldest team mate playing)
What is their favorite book?
What is their favorite pizza topping?
What time do they go to bed?

Codenames

Have you played the board game codenames? It is one our family really enjoys. We had been talking about turning our own cards into a virutal game to play on zoom with friends, but it looks like someone has already made an online version! We haven’t played it yet, but if you are familiar with Codenames already and are somewhat familiar with zoom you will be able to get it to work!

Hope these family games to play on Zoom are helpful and fun!

Other posts of Interest

Favorite Family Games for Game Night

Awesome Book Ideas for the Kids on Your Christmas List

Something to Do – a build your own stay at home fun/expectation manager 

Gift Ideas for the Creative Mom