Tips to Streamline Candy Land | Mom Life Hacks

  Ah yes, little kids and board games. They love them, especially Candy Land. 

  Board games are great for kids, they help teach many new skills and promote problem solving, strategy, hand eye coordination and increase brain growth. 

 

  Yep, all of that from playing games with a sibling or parent. :)

  However, with all of that positive stuff to gain from playing board games with our little ones, it can be hard to remember all of that on the tenth time through Candy Land on a rainy afternoon. 

  I discovered early on that there was a way to make the game go a little faster and more smoothly when you have negotiated for 'just one round' before bed or naptime. 

1. Take out all of the single color cards.

  Yep, take them out. They slow the game down, and are annoying. That leaves you with only the double colors, the game moves much faster after that. 

2. Take out any of the special cards before the the peanut. 

  You heard me, Gum drop, Candy Cane and the dreaded Gingerbread can all take a hike for the speedy version of this game. 

  Has anyone else had a tired preschooler be three spaces from the end and pull a Gingerbread card. The meltdowns are fierce sometimes. Yes, I'm all for learning how to lose graciously, but sometimes Mama just needs the game to be over and done with so naptime can happen. There are other days times to learn those lessons. 

3. Stack the Deck.

 You bet I just said that!

 Tell your kiddo you are shuffling the deck and put those special cards at the top. Imagine the light in their eyes when they pull the infamous Lollipop card on the second turn. It great, and you are done in no time. 

  These tips also help when you are first teaching a little one how the game works. I start all of my kiddos out with this modified version of the game, and add other cards in as they age. 

  

  This really does make the game go a lot faster. Give it a try and share these tips with another mom in the tranches. 

You can thank me later! 

~Lyndsay

P.S. Since we are on this topic, I'd like to know how many kids you have and how many sets of this game you have gone through? 

I'm on my fourth kid and probably the fifth set of the game. No matter how hard we try to take care of it the board tears and the cards just don't hold up. If I was more organized I would laminate the cards or something. 

Those of you that only had one set of this game throughout all of your children, please tell me your secrets to life. Because I'm clearly doing something wrong.