We love our Echo Show, not only does it show our family photos as a screensaver which always offers a great trip down memory lane, but there are so many useful and fun skills available that we use it every day.
It’s incredible what people have created in the Amazon Skills library and how many different skills there are out there. Kora and Logan love playing various games on our Echo Show and so I thought it would be fun to put together a list of some of the best Amazon Alexa skills for families so you can enjoy them too.
Here are some of our favorites:
Chompers – this skill is not a game but it’s a brilliant solution to making toothbrushing fun for little ones. While brushing their teeth kids will hear jokes, riddles, silly songs, fun facts, and more all to keep them entertained while brushing for a full two minutes both morning and evening. It will even count the times you brush and celebrate streaks. A fun way to make brushing teeth something kids look forward to.
Hungry Birds – this skill actually helps develop the foundation of programming and gets kids to use logical thinking as well as increase their focus and listening skills. The challenge is to help the bird reach its nest, it has to stay on the path filled with worms and corn. Whenever the bird eats worms or corn it can perform two of four movements – fly, sit, right, or left. This is a great brainteaser of a game that gets kids thinking while having fun at the same time.
Trivial Pursuit Family Edition – this game is a classic and it’s so much fun to play together. When you set up the game it asks if you have Echo Buttons, if not, you can still play. It will then ask which players want kids or adult questions. Once set up, it’s time for lots of family trivia fun. It has sound effects, music, and funny responses. It’s also great for the Echo Show because you can see which category you are on and how many pie pieces you have. The kid questions are great for tweens or preteens and the adult questions cover a wide range and get you thinking without being too difficult. This is one of our favorite games to play together.
Sesame Street – this is such a fun skill for little ones, it gives them the chance to interact with Elmo! He’ll even play hide and seek and give silly clues about where he’s hiding so kids can guess. Elmos also loves to share his favorite letter of the day each day too.
Lemonade Stand – my kids love this game and play it continually. This is game isn’t only fun but it helps build business and math skills too. It is based on one of the earliest computer games, also called Lemonade Stand. When the game starts Alexa tells you the weather forecast and then you decide how many cups of lemonade you want to buy, how many signs, and how much you want to charge for the lemonade. You’ll then hear the results of your game
Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. Theater – this is a fun interactive story for kids that is similar to the choose your own adventure books we used to read as kids. The mystery storyline keeps kids engaged and they can decide how the story unfolds. The sound effects and narration add to the story and kids enjoy getting to choose what happens next.
Jeopardy – this is one of our favorite skills and games to play. It gives you a new clue every weekday from some of the categories on the game show that aired during the week. There’s also a Double Jeopardy round and Teen Jeopardy and Sports Jeopardy on Sundays. It’s a fun way to challenge your trivia knowledge and families can work together to figure out the questions.
Song Quiz – is an incredibly fun game for families with older kids. You listen to pieces of songs from thousands of artists over the past 60 years. If you correctly name the song title you get points, name the artist too and you get more points. You can choose from a variety of decades and new music is added often. There’s also a bonus question at the end. The song clips are fun to listen to and it’s a great challenge coming up with the title and artists.
Amazon Storytime – while it’s important and fun to read to your kids, this skill is a wonderful addition to that. It’s full of more than 100 short stories complete with sound effects and all read by lively actors who do an amazing job bringing the characters to life. It even has stories from Lego and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Kids can choose from a selection of categories or spin the magic story wheel for a story at random.
Would You Rather For Families – this is one game that always gets everyone laughing! I’m sure you are familiar with the classic Would You Rather Game that asks you to choose between two gross, awful, or funny things – this is the Alexa version. I like that it is focused more on lighthearted and silly situations that truly gross! We also like the sound effects and the stats it shares of how many other people picked the same thing as you.
Deal or No Deal – does your family love the game show Deal or No Deal? This Alexa skill lets everyone play and try to figure out which suitcase contains the imaginary ultimate prize of $1,000,000. Along the way you’ll have to decide will you take the deal or will you say, “No Deal!” and keep playing?
Escape the Room – does your family love Escape Rooms? Now you don’t even have to leave home to play. You have a variety of rooms to choose from: Jail, Office, Car, and Garage. All at a variety of difficulty levels. You can give Alexa a variety of commands to explore the room and try to solve the clues to escape. This is a fantastic Alexa skill that really gets the family working together, thinking, and having fun together.
20Q – this is a really fun way to play twenty questions. You think of something and then Alexa asks you yes or no questions to try to guess it. It’s amazing how many times she guesses right! It’s fun for everyone to try to think up things to stump her. It’s a great simple game that can be played once here are there or you could spend some time on it playing multiple games in a row.
There are a lot of great Alexa skills and games out there for families these days. These are just a few of our favorites, I look forward to discovering many more skills and sharing them with you along the way.
