Games to play with grandchildren while face timing them ?

I used to play hide and seek with my GD and, like Nansnet used to be taken on the ipad to hide with her. Great fun.

You could try reading a story and show the pictures if you want something quieter.

I used to play find the garden gnome. I would put it in a random place then walk about the house/garden and they would look for it. This does depend on the ages of the children but mine were young.

Reported, not you GrandmaKT, the 2 comments before yours!

We use Messenger rather than Facetime for video chats with our grandkids in NZ. It has some great visual effects, so if they start tiring of the conversation they can add a fire breathing dragon to their head, or a princess tiara! Lots of great backgrounds too.
I also scan books into PowerPoint presentations and read them to the kids.

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I haven't managed to Skype with any of my grandchildren for more than a couple of minutes. With the two girls, they end up fighting before we've even finished saying hello, they both talk at once, and at least one of them just flounces off, or they lose interest and leave me staring at the wall or possibly even the ceiling. The boys are a little bit better but they live much nearer and we don't Skype so much with them.

It depends how old the grandchildren are but you could also have an egg timer or some sort of stopwatch and challenge your grandchild/grandchildren to go and grab random items from in the house (for example an egg, a men’s sock etc) just read the items out one at a time and they have a time limit to fetch that item and bring it back, then read out the next item. If it’s you and your husband calling, you could keep the list secret from your husband and have him race the grandchild to see who can bring the item back first (instead of using a timer)

What about a treasure hunt.

"Bring me something shiny"
"Bring me a red sock"
"Bring me a spatula"

Etc

Scrabble here.
Identical boards, reverse camera as appropriate. It has the advantage that you can leave the board set up, add to it 'out of hours' and send a screenshoot to continue the challenge.

I "throw" my students a present online. They "catch" it and "open" it. And use their imagine as to what it is and thank me for their present. "Wow, thank you for the verrry long snake....." etc.
This game would work with grandchildren just as well as with students online.

Nansnet that’s absolutely brilliant!

I play hide and seek with mine! One of them will take me (on the i-pad!) to hide with them, whilst the other will count, then try to find us! Lots of giggling ensues! If it's just one of them, they go to hide whilst I count, and mum or dad will carry me (on the i-pad) to find them! Or they'll hide me (on the i-pad!) whilst GC counts and then tries to find me! If they have difficulty finding me, I can talk to them until they do. They love it!