Blokus!

I discovered a great board game this year. It's called Blokus, and it uses Tetris-style pieces of varying colors. Up to four people (or 4 teams) can play at a time. Players start building from their corner, and those pieces can only touch each other by the corners... they cannot share a side. The object is to get all of your pieces on the board while blocking opponents' pieces in the process. It's totally fun. I got Blokus for my classroom this year with my special requisitions money, and my students love it. We put it up on the Elmo projector, so the game board is projected screen-size, and they play against each other in teams.

Recently, when I needed a replacement green piece (unfortunately, they have a lot of pieces, and middle school kids aren't always the most careful about checking the floor and cleaning up carefully), I went to the Blokus website. They have online games for free, and they have several variations of the game too. I'm currently addicted to the 3-D version. If you're looking for a gift for kids or for a family, you can't beat board games, in my opinion, and Blokus is a great one!