Old School Printable Games

We’re coming up on school break, which means two things for kids – lots of down time, and lots of travel time to visit family for the holidays. Kids get bored easily, and we don’t always want them in front of screens! So we’ve come up with several sets of old school printable games for kids of all ages. These games are the ways we used to kill time when we would be bored out of our minds when we were kids. Classic games that are fun for both kids and adults!

You might also enjoy our printable ad libs!

Printable Chess and Checkers Games

If you’ve ever felt the need to play chess or checkers without wanting to have to go out and actually buy them, these printable games are perfect! The checkers are intended to be cut out and folded in half so that they are double sided. Then when a checker gets “Kinged” you can turn it over from the blank side to the crown side.

Here’s instructions on how to play chess and how to play checkers.

Printable Playing Cards

While these are definitely not appropriate for playing poker or any other game that would require secrecy of the cards in your hand, they would be excellent for a simple game of war or a game of solitaire! We recommend at least printing them out onto card stock so that they are easier to shuffle and handle.

Here’s instructions on how to play solitaire and how to play war.

Printable Strategic Games

These games are ubiquitous but also a great way to teach and practice strategy for kids. I still enjoy playing a good game of dots with my kids. While strategy is important, there’s just enough luck involved that they can beat me – sometimes! The dominoes game is another game to print out onto card stock if possible, because you don’t want your opponent seeing what you have.

Here’s instructions on how to play dots, how to play tic tac toe and how to play dominoes.

Printable Guessing Games

We played many a game of hangman when we were kids! But I also loved playing Battleship, too! Be sure to print out two copies of the Battleship game so that each player has one to use.

Here’s instructions on how to play hangman and how to play battleship.