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Gifted Children's Resource Guide

Kids' Games

Each year since 1990, Mensa has solicited new games from manufacturers of which five are selected to bear the Mensa Select® seal. These games are generally challenging and fun to play time after time. The following winners are eminently suited for families.

  • SET (Set Enterprises, Inc) is a card game that requires players to find sets of three cards with each of 4 different attributes either all the same or all different. This makes a great family game, as after some practice the kids start doing as well, if not better than, the adults. It retails for about $12, and we've seen it at Gamers Paradise and some other stores. Set Enterprises Inc has a good tutorial to teach the rules and allows you to play daily but you can also play more often online.
  • Rat-a-Tat-Cat (Gamewright, Inc) is a game that combines a little memory work, some skill, and a small bit of luck. Rounds are played very quickly, and the rules were clear and easy to understand. This game is geared more for children than SET, but it is still fun for the family to play. A video and the rules are available at the Gamewright website.

See all the Mensa Select Games on the American Mensa website.

Most Courtesy of Kathe Oliver
  • It's much more fun to watch and interact with physics. Watch what happens when a car hits a wall. Some of the material is available for use on an iPad or iBook.
  • The National Gallery of Art's interactive website gives visitors the opportunity to create collages, mobiles, paintings, and simple animated art online. When you've completed your artwork you can compare it with pieces from the museum's collection. The website has challenges suitable for artists of all ages.
  • What happened on the day that you were born? What were the headlines on your second birthday? Get the highlights (or lowlights) of every day of the year from the History Channel.
  • Engage in the issues by participating in one of the Koshland Science Museum’s online challenges. Age in 3 minutes! Test your memory. Share your thoughts and experiences. Learn new skills. Think critically. Solve problems. Immerse yourself in the science. Participate in a challenge and you might be featured in the museum and on the museum website!
  • To jumpstart your brain, try one of the downloadable Activity Kits from Brain Quest.
  • There are all sorts of fun experiments you can do yourself for fun. Float eggs, make glowing water, make a rainbow and more. Find out what you need and how to do it at Science Kids.
  • Find a mental challenge among the list of classic "trick questions." Once you have chosen a question, scroll slowly down the page until you have reached the final line of the question. The answers follow the questions immediately, so if you aren't careful, you will see the answer before you have had the time to think about how to solve the problem.
  • If you enjoy math and logic problems, and puzzles, check out BarcodesInc.
  • If you would rather create puzzles than solve them, make ten different puzzles, including word search, number block, and maze puzzles. You can even design puzzles for yourself to solve. Try a word search puzzle based on your friends and family, or on Mensa.
  • Mensa For Kids’ “Bright” is the smartest monthly eNewsletter for kids ages 6-10, brought to you by Mensa for Kids and the Mensa Education & Foundation. Every issue is full of fun games, puzzles, activities and factoids specially selected to encourage children to learn, explore and think outside the box. Regular features include games of logic, math, spatial relations and word usage; science features; activity ideas and “edutainment” programs; and feature stories courtesy of the Mensa For Kids website and the Mensa Foundation. It’s easy for all your favorite young people to subscribe. Current members can subscribe via American Mensa and nonmembers can visit Mensa For Kids website and follow the links under “Bright Newsletter” (parental permission for nonmembers under 13 is required!). The most current 90 days of issues are available on both sites, and PDFs are also available for download and printing within each e‑mail issue.
  • Discover Engineering lists activities and has links to some fun websites related to engineering and math.
  • Ever want to create your own game? Learn to code by moving the Angry Bird to get the Evil Pig and the Zombie to get to the Sunflower.
  • Cross the River using fractions. Or complete the flowers before the petals hit the ground.
  • There are even some puzzles here on our website.
  • Some free classes for kids so they can explore their interests.
  • Calculators & Links to Math-related Sites.
  • Find out the history of calculators and explore the various kinds of specialized calculators (including links) at Pigly.
  • The ScratchJr app offers fun coding projects for young kids (5 - 8) on tablets. It enables them to pick objects and backgrounds, and then program them to move on the screen. They can even draw their own backgrounds or customize the objects. There are quite a few YouTube videos that show them how as well as info on the website.
  • The Scratch app offers fun coding projects for kids (8 - 16) on tablets. It enables them to create stories, games, and animations. There are a number of YouTube videos that show them how as well as info and challenges on the website.
  • Science Toys you can make with your kids. From Aerodynamics to Thermodynamics. Be careful with that magnetic linear accelerator.
  • Ten Websites for Gifted Kids
  • Online Educational Practice Games for Mathematics from Maryville University
  • Code.org offers fun coding projects (like creating a dance party in "Hour of Code" simply by dragging snippets of code) at no cost for grades k-12 and beyond.
  • National Geographic Kids has games, videos, info about animals, weird but true fun facts, science experiments, and more.
  • NASA Kids' Club provides stories, games, and fun information.
  • The San Francisco Exploratorium lists lots of science activities to try.
  • App Development Tools & Games: List of websites and apps available to kids, parents, and educators to play and/or learn to create games, code, and develop skills.
  • MIT App Inventor: A free, cloud-based tool for building Android apps. It offers an intuitive programming environment and teaches the basics of computing through a series of helpful video tutorials.
  • Kodu Game Lab: Microsoft’s Kodu allows users with no design or programming skills to create games on a PC and Xbox with a simple and intuitive visual programming language. The heart of Kodu is the tile-based programming language. The language is high level in the sense that a lot can be accomplished in a very few lines of “kode” compared to traditional programming. The platform has a very active community, and children share their games with others online. With no hidden fees, this is a great choice for young ones interested in learning more about game development.

Books & Software


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