You might look at card games. My brothers were in first grade or younger when they learned to play Spades and Gin. You might try teaching Memory if you have an older 2-year-old.
Stratego was wildly popular in my third grade class, oddly enough.
But if your wife has difficulty with Stratego, she’d probably not be too thrilled at Clue, which was another one we were able to play, pairing readers with non-readers when necessary.
Taboo is a good one. So is Balderdash and Scattergories. Again, you might consider teaming up an older player with a younger player, since all of them are very verbal games.
Apples to Apples is always popular with a wide range of players. You get dealt a hand of cards. One player plays a card-- “Scary”, for example. You have to look in your hand and not just think of what
you think is scary, but what that player will think of as scary. So one person might play “Spiders”, someone else might play “Marcel Marceau”, and another person might play “The Chicken Dance”. The person who played the “Scary” card has to pick which card they like the best (without knowing who played what), and points go to that person.
Another popular family game is called Curses! The more the merrier for this one; the kids will probably enjoy it more than the adults. You draw an action card-- “You’re a used car salesman. Sell a car to the player next to you.” You do the activity, then draw a Curse card and pass it face-down to another player. The cursed player turns it over-- “You must speak like Mr. T”, for example. And so when they have to do their next activity-- “You are a waiter. Tell everybody what the special is tonight” – but with Mr. T’s delivery. When you have five or six Curse cards that you need to juggle your actions around, things can get kind of crazy.
Thanks in advance.