Stay At Home & Be a Tabletop Gamer

Tabletop gaming is all the rage. No electronics required—only a game and what's between your ears and time, something a lot of us have on our hands.

Haven't heard of this? Tabletop games are games that are normally played on a table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, or tile-based games.

I extend tabletop gaming to jigsaw puzzles. In my family, a jigsaw puzzle was a family recreation thing.

Every few months, we'd lay out a new puzzle on a table, and it would stay there until we'd completed the puzzle. All of us—parents and brothers and me and anyone who dropped by—would pick up puzzle pieces and try to put some together.

I carried that tradition into my household as a Christmas tradition. We'd dump the pieces of a monster sized jigsaw puzzle onto a card table.

Then we all participate, spending as little as thirty minutes and as much as hours trying to fit those pieces together.

We'd have music playing in the background, and we'd sing along every now and then. Most of all, it was shared time together.

Stay At Home Projects

I've got a cupboard full of board games and jigsaw puzzles. If you don't, order some from Amazon. They've got all of the popular ones. Get a game or two and a puzzle.

Putting a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle together teaches eye-hand coordination, mental-visual acuity, persistence, and time.

There's something addictive about putting puzzles together, and kids really like that "wow" feeling when they get pieces to fit.

Jigsaw puzzles are rated by age the same as games. For little kids, go with fewer puzzle pieces in larger sizes like the Toy Story puzzle above.

They come in all shapes, sizes, and price points.

For something really challenging, pick a puzzle with a picture that's either finely detailed or almost monochromatic.

Wow, putting together a thousand pieces that are all about the same color is mind-boggling.

The Age of Discover puzzle is a good example of complexity as well as the themes of puzzles. You'll find them keyed to popular movies, books, and historical events.


If your kids want to save the completed puzzles, you can get Puzzle Saver, a stick on cut-and-fit adhesive to preserve it.

This inexpensive product is "Made by Puzzle Enthusiasts for Puzzle Enthusiasts."

Make the most of your time together and make memories for years to come. 

Takeaway Truth

You might never be able to brag about your video game skills, but tabletop gaming? You can rock that!