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Card Games for Kids

Mayuri Kulkarni
Card games are a fun way to spend time indoors. This section suggests some popular card games that kids can play on summer afternoons or rainy days.
Children normally do not like sitting indoors. However, you can teach them simple card games to keep them entertained. Card games are fun and can be enjoyed by every age group. Given here are some such games for kids to play at home.

Old Maid

Old Maid is an age-old card game. It falls under the category of scapegoat games, wherein the players have to avoid receiving a particular card. In this game, the players have to avoid getting the "Old Maid" card, which is a queen card.
This game can be played by 2 to 8 players. Before you begin, remove 3 queens from the deck of 52. The queen that remains is the "Old Maid". Now, shuffle the cards properly, choose a dealer, and ask him/her to deal the cards evenly among the players. Every player will hold the cards in their hands and discard the ones that form pairs.
The game goes in clockwise direction from the left hand side of the dealer. The dealer will hold his cards face down and ask the player sitting to the left to pick a card randomly. If this card forms a pair with any card that the player holds, he/she will put the pair down and pull one more card from the dealer.
If the card does not match, then the game continues with the next pair of players. It ends when the Old Maid is the only card left in the game. The player who holds this card loses the game.

Add the Cards

This is a math game that can help your kid to improve his/her arithmetic skills. Use a standard 52-cards deck; you can remove the queens, kings, and knaves to reduce the difficulty level of the game. It can be played by two or more players.
Deal the cards evenly between all the players. Each person will keep his/her pile of cards on the table, face down. Then every player will draw a card from his/her pile and place it on the table, face up.
When everyone has done this, all the players should try to calculate the total of all the cards that are played. The first player who yells out the correct sum wins the round and keeps the cards. The game ends when one player acquires all the cards.

The Pig

To play this game, first remove four cards from the deck of 52, such that the four cards belong to one denomination, like a set of all aces or all Queens.
One set should be made for each player. So, if 4 people are playing, then there will be total 16 cards i.e 4 sets of 4 cards each. Shuffle these cards properly, choose a dealer and deal them among the players, such that every player has 4 cards in his/her hands.
The object of the game is to make a set of 4 similar cards, or not to be the last one who notices that another player has made a set. Each player chooses a card that he/she wants to pass and keeps it to his/her left, simultaneously picking up the card placed at his/her right.
The game ends when a player successfully makes a set of four cards, puts a finger on his/her nose, and stops passing the cards. The other players should immediately stop passing the cards and put their fingers on their noses. The last one to realize that the game has ended is a PIG!
There are innumerable fun card games for kids and these were some of the popular ones, which will be enjoyed by them greatly.