The Growing Chat1. A counting game hidden in a chat. The first line of the conversation is one word long: Hungry?2. The reply has two words, the next line three, and so on, a word longer each time, and every line has to answer the one before.3. Count the words on your fingers as you speak. A line that is too long or too short ends the climb.4. Reach ten words, then come back down a word at a time until one of you says the last single word.Ages: 7 and up. Players: 2.
The Shop That Sells Only Clouds1. A pretend conversation with a beginning, a middle and an end. One player keeps a shop that sells one odd thing: clouds, sneezes, left shoes. The other is a customer.2. Both say hello. The customer asks for one thing, and the shopkeeper asks one question back. Big or small? For indoors?3. The customer answers, says thank you and goodbye, and the shopkeeper says goodbye too.4. Swap, and the new shopkeeper chooses what the shop sells. The game is saying all the parts in order, so nobody rushes.Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 or 3.
Five-Finger Telling1. A telling game counted on one hand. The teller holds up a closed fist and picks something to tell about: this morning, a walk, a birthday.2. They tell it in five sentences and lift a finger for each: first, then, next, after that, last.3. The listener may not speak until all five fingers are up, and then asks one question about the part they liked.4. Swap. A child who runs out at three fingers may ask the listener to guess what happened next.Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
The Because Chain1. A talking chain built on three joining words. One player says a plain sentence about anything in sight: The bus is late. 2. The next player carries it on with a sentence that starts with Because, the one after with But, and the one after with So. 3. After So, whoever spoke last starts a new plain sentence, and the three words come around again. 4. A player who cannot think of a line says pass, and the chain moves on. The story is usually a long way from the bus by the time the bus comes. Ages: 6 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
From Socks to Space1. A steering game. One player names two subjects that have nothing to do with each other, such as socks and space. 2. The first speaker says one sentence about socks. Each player after that adds one sentence that follows on from the one before and edges the talk toward space. 3. No jumping: a listener who cannot see how a sentence follows may ask how, and the speaker has to explain. 4. Count the sentences it took to arrive. Then go back from space to socks by another road and try to do it in fewer. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 2 to 5.
The Growing Chat1. A counting game hidden in a chat. The first line of the conversation is one word long: Hungry? 2. The reply has two words, the next line three, and so on, a word longer each time, and every line has to answer the one before. 3. Count the words on your fingers as you speak. A line that is too long or too short ends the climb. 4. Reach ten words, then come back down a word at a time until one of you says the last single word. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 2.
Show all 32 games (29 more)
While you wait, continued
Notice and Wonder1. A looking and asking game for a line that is not moving. One player says I notice, and names one small thing that everyone can see: the clock has no numbers. People are not things, so leave them out. 2. The next player says I wonder, and asks a question about it. I wonder who winds it. 3. The first player gives their best guess at an answer, in one sentence. 4. The wonderer becomes the next noticer. Nothing may be noticed twice, so the game gets harder the longer you wait. Ages: 5 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
Ten Yeses in a Row1. A question game in which only an honest yes counts. One player asks, and the other answers every question truthfully with yes or no. 2. The asker is trying to hear ten yeses in a row, so each question has to be one they think they know the answer to: Do you like rain? Have you ever lost a tooth at school? 3. A no sends the count back to zero, and the answerer says what the true answer is. 4. After ten in a row, or when the wait ends, swap. The shorter road to ten shows who knows the other better. Ages: 5 and up. Players: 2 or 3.
The Visitor Who Knows Nothing1. An explaining game. One player is a visitor who has never heard of the thing you are all waiting for: a bus, a dentist, a roller coaster. 2. Another player explains it in one sentence. 3. The visitor picks one word from that sentence and asks what it is. What is a ticket? What is a seat? The explainer answers in one more sentence, and the visitor picks a word from that. 4. The explainer wins by giving a sentence with no word left to ask about. The visitor wins if the explainer gives up. Ages: 6 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
What Was the Question?1. A guessing game that runs backward. One player thinks of a question about themselves and says only the answer: Four. On Tuesdays. My cousin. 2. The others take turns guessing the question. How many teeth have you lost? 3. The answerer says warmer or colder after each guess, and after five guesses gives the first word of the question. 4. Whoever finds the question gives the next answer. Short answers are the hardest to crack. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 2 to 5.
Which Day Am I Remembering?1. Twenty questions, with a day in place of a thing. One player thinks of a day that everyone playing was there for: the picnic in the rain, the first day of school. 2. The others ask questions that can be answered yes or no. Was it this year? Were we outdoors? Did we eat anything? 3. A guess at the day counts as a question, and the group has twenty in all. 4. When the day is found, each player tells one thing they remember from it that nobody has said yet. Ages: 6 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
For ages 4 to 7 8
Collect All Three Answers1. A first question game. The child asks a grown-up questions and tries to collect three different answers: one yes, one no and one maybe. 2. The grown-up answers honestly. Do you like spiders? No. Is it going to rain? Maybe. 3. The child holds up a finger for each new kind of answer. Maybe is the hard one to get, so give a hint: ask me about tomorrow. 4. With all three collected, swap, and the grown-up has to earn a yes, a no and a maybe from the child. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 or 3.
Five-Finger Telling1. A telling game counted on one hand. The teller holds up a closed fist and picks something to tell about: this morning, a walk, a birthday. 2. They tell it in five sentences and lift a finger for each: first, then, next, after that, last. 3. The listener may not speak until all five fingers are up, and then asks one question about the part they liked. 4. Swap. A child who runs out at three fingers may ask the listener to guess what happened next. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
Fix My Silly Fact1. A correcting game, played politely. A grown-up says something about the child's day that is plainly wrong: you eat breakfast in the bathtub. 2. The child puts it right in a full sentence that starts with No, actually. No, actually, I eat breakfast at the table. 3. The grown-up tries again, a little closer or a lot sillier, and the child keeps correcting. 4. After three fixes, swap, and the child says wrong things about the grown-up's day. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
Guess My Reason1. A game about the word because. One player names a favorite and keeps the reason to themselves: my favorite day is Thursday. 2. The other player has three guesses at the reason, and each guess starts with Because. Because you have swimming? 3. After three guesses, or a right one, the first player gives the real reason in a full sentence. 4. Swap, and take a favorite of a new kind each time: a food, a place, a sound, a smell. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 or 3.
The Shop That Sells Only Clouds1. A pretend conversation with a beginning, a middle and an end. One player keeps a shop that sells one odd thing: clouds, sneezes, left shoes. The other is a customer. 2. Both say hello. The customer asks for one thing, and the shopkeeper asks one question back. Big or small? For indoors? 3. The customer answers, says thank you and goodbye, and the shopkeeper says goodbye too. 4. Swap, and the new shopkeeper chooses what the shop sells. The game is saying all the parts in order, so nobody rushes. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 or 3.
Teach Me How1. A teaching game, in words only. The child picks something they know how to do: brushing teeth, building a tower, feeding the cat. 2. The grown-up says they have never done it, and the child explains it one step at a time. 3. The grown-up repeats each step back and gets one small thing wrong on purpose: so I put the toothpaste on my ear? 4. The child corrects it and goes on. At the end the grown-up says the whole thing back properly, and the child gives a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 or 3.
Tell Me About Your Dragon1. A listening game about a pet nobody has. One player owns a pretend dragon, and whatever they say about it is true. 2. The others ask five questions in turn. What does it eat? Where does it sleep? What is it scared of? 3. The owner answers each in a sentence and may not change an answer later. 4. After the fifth answer, the askers tell the owner everything they have learned about the dragon, and the owner listens for mistakes. Next time, somebody else owns a pet from the bottom of the sea. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
What If a Giraffe Came to Dinner?1. A pretend-talk game. One player asks a what-if question about something that could never happen at home: what if a giraffe came to dinner? 2. The other answers in one sentence. It would have to eat upstairs. 3. The asker says "And then what?" three times, and each answer has to follow from the last. 4. After the third answer, the answerer thinks up the next what-if. A grown-up can go first to show how big the questions may be. Ages: 4 and up. Players: 2 to 4.
With friends when bored 8
Guess Who I Am Talking To1. A game about how words change with the listener. One player thinks of a listener: a baby, a queen, a dog, a judge, a very old tortoise. 2. They say three sentences about today's weather as they would say them to that listener. No acting, no silly voice and no names: only the choice of words may give it away. 3. The others each get one guess. 4. If nobody has it, the speaker says three more sentences, on what is for dinner. Whoever guesses picks the next listener. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 3 to 8.
Half a Phone Call1. A guessing game with one voice. One player decides who is calling them and why: a grandmother with news about a dog, a coach moving practice. They tell nobody. 2. They hold a hand to an ear and speak only their own half of the call, leaving a gap for each reply. 3. The others listen to all of it without a word. 4. When the caller says goodbye, the group agrees on one guess: who was on the line, and what was the news? If both are right, the half was told well, and the caller picks who takes the next call. Ages: 8 and up. Players: 3 to 8.
The Interrupting Word1. A talking game with heckling built in. One player starts talking about anything they know well: their street, a pet, a sport. 2. Going around the ring, each listener in turn calls out one unrelated word: pancake, submarine, Wednesday. 3. The talker has to use that word in their very next sentence, and the sentence must still be about their subject. 4. A talker who stalls for a slow count of five hands over to the player on the left. Count how many words each talker took on board. Ages: 8 and up. Players: 3 to 6.
Plan the Worst Picnic1. A planning game in which every idea is welcome and every idea is bad. The first player names one choice for the picnic: we will hold it in a parking lot. 2. Each player after that starts with Yes, and, then adds a choice that makes the picnic worse: yes, and we will bring only soup. 3. Nobody may undo an earlier choice, and nothing dangerous or unkind may be added: bad means silly. 4. After two times around the ring, the last player describes the whole day as an invitation. Next time, plan the worst sleepover. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 3 to 8.
Six Questions About a Tall Tale1. An interview about something that never happened. The group gives one player an invented event: the day you found a penguin in your bag. 2. The others ask six questions, one each in turn, and they must start with who, what, where, when, why and how, in that order. 3. The teller answers each in a sentence and may never go against an earlier answer. A listener who spots a clash calls it. 4. Whoever asked how retells the whole tale from the six answers, and then takes the next event. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 3 to 7.
Three Advisers for a Silly Problem1. An advice game. One player invents a problem that could not be real: my goldfish keeps beating me at chess. 2. Each of the others gives one piece of advice in a serious voice, and no two advisers may say the same thing. 3. The player with the problem may ask one adviser a single follow-up question. 4. They choose the advice they would take and say why, and that adviser brings the next problem. Problems are about pets, weather, furniture and food, never about real people. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 3 to 6.
Three Tangents and Back1. A game of getting lost on purpose. One player starts a true story about their week. 2. Three times, a listener cuts in with a side question that has little to do with the story: what did you have for lunch that day? The teller answers it properly, in a few sentences. 3. After the third side trip, the teller has to walk back through the tangents in reverse order, a sentence for each, and then finish the first story. 4. Listeners call lost if a tangent is skipped. Then the next player tells. Ages: 9 and up. Players: 3 to 6.
The Wrong Interview1. An interview in which both sides are mistaken. One player is the whisperer. They whisper a job to the interviewer, such as lion tamer, and a different job to the guest, such as baker. 2. The interviewer asks questions fit for the job they heard, and the guest answers as the job they heard. Neither may name a job. 3. Each listens for clues to what the other one believes. How do you stay safe at work? I never touch the oven without gloves. 4. The whisperer stops the interview after eight questions, and each of the two says what they think the other was told. Extra players listen and guess both jobs. Then a new whisperer takes over. Ages: 8 and up. Players: 3 to 6.
At the dinner table 8
Headline of My Day1. A game for the question how was your day. Each person in turn sums up their day as a newspaper headline of a few words: Local Girl Finds Second Glove. 2. The table gets exactly three questions to dig out the story, so nobody wastes one on a question that a yes would answer. 3. The person answers each, and then the table says what it thinks happened. 4. The person tells the real story in two sentences. The table votes for one headline to be read out again at the end of the meal. Ages: 6 and up. Players: 3 to 8.
The Long Agreement1. A game the whole table wins or loses together. Going around, each person says one opinion they believe everybody at the table shares: soup should be hot. 2. After each one, anybody who honestly disagrees raises a hand and says why in a sentence. 3. No hands means the chain grows by one. A hand ends the chain, and the person who disagreed starts a new one. 4. Facts do not count, only opinions. Keep the longest chain as the table's record and try to beat it at dessert. Ages: 8 and up. Players: 3 to 10.
One Answer for Three Questions1. A guessing game about which question an answer belongs to. One person is in the chair. Three others each ask them a different question, one after another, and the person answers none of them yet. 2. Then they give one true answer, to just one of the three questions, without saying which. 3. Everyone else points at the asker whose question they think it answered. 4. The person says which it was, and answers the other two as well. Askers soon learn to ask three questions that could share an answer. Ages: 8 and up. Players: 4 to 10.
One Question for a Whale1. A game of asking the impossible. One person names somebody or something that cannot be asked a question: a whale, the moon, the house you live in, a great-grandmother when she was six. 2. Going around the table, each person says the one question they would ask it. 3. The namer picks the question they like most, and everybody else answers it as the whale would, a sentence each. 4. The person whose question was picked names the next thing to ask. No question may be used twice in one evening. Ages: 5 and up. Players: 3 to 10.
One True Story From Three Words1. A storytelling game with true stories only. Three people at the table each give the teller one word: a place, a thing and a kind of weather, such as garage, umbrella, fog. 2. The teller thinks for a moment, then tells something that really happened to them and that holds all three. 3. The words may be bent a little: a carport will do for a garage. The table decides if a bend is fair. 4. A teller with no such story says so, swaps one word and tries again. The person who gave the place tells next. Ages: 7 and up. Players: 4 to 8.
Say It Simpler1. An explaining game with the youngest person as judge. One older person explains something from their day in two sentences: a job, a lesson, a thing they fixed. 2. The judge says simpler, please, and the speaker has to say it again in easier words. 3. The judge may ask for simpler three times. After that they say it back in their own words, and the speaker says how close it was. 4. Then the judge explains something from their own day, and the oldest person at the table may ask for more detail three times. Ages: 5 and up. Players: 3 to 8.
Table Reporter1. A listening game. One child is the reporter and puts the same question to each person in turn: what was the smallest good thing in your day? 2. Each person answers in one or two sentences, and the reporter writes nothing down. 3. When everyone has answered, the reporter gives the evening news: one sentence a person, from memory. 4. Each person says whether the report got them right. Tomorrow a new reporter chooses a new question. Ages: 6 and up. Players: 3 to 8.
Tell Us About the Time1. A tall-tale game with the whole table as the audience. The table gives one person an adventure they never had: tell us about the time you rode a cow to school. 2. That person tells it as if it happened, in four sentences: how it began, what went wrong, who helped, how it ended. 3. Each listener may ask one question, and the teller must answer without breaking the tale. 4. The teller chooses the next person and their adventure. Adventures are grand and kind: nobody is given a tale that makes them look foolish. Ages: 6 and up. Players: 3 to 10.
How this list was compiled: Our own games for children from age 4, played only by talking: nothing is written, drawn or held. The wording, the ages and the player counts are ours. No game talks about strangers nearby, puts a player on the spot about their family, body or beliefs, or stakes anything on an answer. Which Day Am I Remembering? is built on twenty questions, a game families have played for generations, and gives one way to play it. The list states no fact that needs an outside source. Licence: own work
How it works
These conversation games for kids are played only by talking, so they fit a line, a car seat or the gap between courses. Nothing is written down and nothing is held.
Read the full guide
For a wait, in order
These are the verbal games to play while waiting, in While you wait. 1. A short wait: Ten Yeses in a Row. 2. A line that is not moving: Notice and Wonder. 3. A long wait: The Because Chain, then Which Day Am I Remembering? Each can stop mid-turn when your name is called.
One child and one grown-up
As verbal games to play with children under seven, the eight in For ages 4 to 7 each work with one child and one grown-up. Start with Fix My Silly Fact, where the child corrects the grown-up.
In a waiting room, keep voices low and leave the people around you out of every game.
Questions and answers
What are good talking games to play with 3 people?
The Wrong Interview is built for three: the third player whispers one job to the interviewer and another to the guest. Half a Phone Call and Plan the Worst Picnic start at three too, and 3 players shows all 29.
What are talking games to play with friends when bored?
The eight in With friends when bored are for three or more. The Interrupting Word rewards the friend who never stops talking, and Three Tangents and Back turns one story into four.
Which of these are dinner party conversation games?
At the dinner table has eight for a whole table, children included. The Long Agreement is won or lost by everyone together, and Headline of My Day gives each guest one turn and the table three questions.
Which conversation games can a 4 year old play?
In Collect All Three Answers a child hunts for a yes, a no and a maybe, and Tell Me About Your Dragon lets them invent a pet and answer five questions about it. Age 4 shows every game a four year old can join.