There are a lot of board games coming out of Germany (for whatever reasone) that are really a lot of fun. I would suggest Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico and The Settlers of Catan. They are generally less competition oriented, thus making them fun for kids and adults. Games are great to teach strategy and help kids develop social and learning skills. Chess is of course the best for strategy, but it may not be the best to start with.

Physicist Richard Feynman talked about a game he would play with his dad, where his dad would lay out colored floor tiles and have his son find the pattern in the tiles. Mathematics is just an extension of patters, i.e. multiplication is a repeated pattern of addition etc.
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Monopoly is a great way to help your kid with their mathematics, especially if they are the banker. Lego is also very fun to play with your child, since they can use their imagination while building things. For a bit older kids (10-15) you can play a very addictive game on the net called 'Line Rider'. It is a game where you make paths for a little 2D sledder person named Bosh. A link to the site: http://www.linerider.com/ Hope I helped!
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The best games for my kids are games that make them think. Also games that teach them something. For little ones I like the toy brand Leap Frog. For 7 and 8 years old, I like board games like Monopoly because they can use Math. I also make them play Dominos. Again, in this game they have to use Math.
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By far the best educational resource for people, of all age groups, would be lumosity IMO.
The whole purpose of lumosity is to improve your cognitive abilities on all fronts. You play games that improve your working memory, spatial ability, verbal fluency and everything in between. They have metrics that allow you to track your development. And you can even compare your score to people your age. No, I'm not affiliated with them--just highly addicted.
Source(s):
lumosity.com

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th best games for kids are puzzles, virtual pets and dress-up games for girls, you may also try cooking games but with guidance because they might try it at home.

Anything that doesn't promote violence and contributes to their learning development and social skills is ok!

If you have facebook, you can also add the Pet Society application and have a bonding time with your kids playing PetSoc.
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I don't know what are the best, but I notice that it's the old favorites that seem to stay with people all their lives, and be enjoyed by generation after generation.

Word Games & Guessing Games - I Spy, Twenty Questions, and a few others. You can play I Spy as "Something beginning with.... (letter or sound)" or "Something that is... (color or shape)".

There was also a word game called (I think) Ghost. You started with a letter and took turns adding letters. First one that added a letter that made a whole word lost. If you thought there were no words starting with that string of letters you could challenge the other person to name such a word. If they could they'd win, if not you win.

Board Games - Checkers, Chess, Monopoly, Scrabble. Also at younger ages the Snakes & Ladders or Ludo type games, though they come in lots of varieties now.

Card Games - I suppose Hearts is the most child friendly. I'm not sure what I learned first. (I've wondered at what age people first learn Poker!)

Sports & Outdoor Actiivites - Frisbee, Soccer, Tennis.

My other thought is its good to start kids on things as soon as they show the interest and ability to be able to have a go. Things like chess and tennis are a bit like learning languages, if you start young you generally speak them a lot more fliuently than starting later.

As for educational activities, making or fixing things can be very educational if your kids are so inclined. In "making things" I'd include software. Have a look at Alice for instance.
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Chess
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My favorite card game that my kids (11 and 9) also love is Set. They also really like the word game Apples to Apples.
Source(s):
http://www.setgame.com/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00008W72Q

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if yu are looking for good educational games on consoles like wii, try brain academy, im 14, i find it fun and my mum reckons its really good for us
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There is lots of good educational games for you and your kids to play. There is monopoly, candystand, life, scrabble,pictonary,uno,bingo,go fish, solitare, trouble,cranium, clue, battle of the sexes, sorry. For younger kids i would suggest leap frog games/toys. And also vtech smile it is an game system with educational games.
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I have a 9 year old boy and his favorite games on computers are action games on www.miniclips.com. Board games that we have found fun are: Yahtzee, Scrabble, and Sorry! As far as outside games, he likes to play with the Nerf gun toys, his small action figure sets (Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones, army men), and anything having to do with a ball!
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My daughter (7) loves playing games on the WebKinz and Ty.com websites. When my son (currently 9) was younger, he loved Tonka games on the computer. He spent hours building stuff on virtual construction sites.

Currently, both kids love Monopoly style games. They've sort of outgrown Junior Monopoly at this point, and are into the adult version, which is great for math skills. We have an old Monopoly style game called "The Farming Game" which we all really like as well. They also love Apples to Apples, which is great for vocabulary development. We play mostly the Junior version, but we've played the adult version as well.

We've also played "Moods" with them; they really like it, and it helps build vocabulary and reading skills.

I personally really like "Ticket to Ride" and "Settlers of Catan", but I haven't tried them out on the kids yet.

In the car, we used to play guessing games. 20 questions, I Spy, that sort of things. We still do occasionally, but the kids are really growing out of that. One variation we used to play was "guess the animal", basically 20 questions, but the object had to be some kind of animal. It was fun to try to figure out how to ask questions to get to the right type of animal as quickly as possible.
Source(s):
Personal experience

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One that I love is states you play it in the car. You pick a state and see who can find it first. The first to find the state on a tag gets a reword. Another is puzzles tho a little bit hard to keep kids interousted, it's fun to work together over a period of time. Hope these help you!
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You can install Microsoft Encarta 2009 and there is a Children's Encarta module included. It has games that help improve your child's learning.

You can also try Jumpstart products.  They have software and games to enhance your kids learning.  Check it out at www.jumpstart.com.
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1.Chess
2.Monoploy(Business yard)
3.Even the card game in windows operating system will help because it will help to build the logic
4.age of empire u need to be alert of everything.
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