Now I am not talking about trivia games that benefit you for having excellent “useless” knowledge stuck in your head beforehand; I am talking about games that even if you don’t know something precise, your best guess can still help you win.
The website Geek Gear Galore had put out an article in 2019 that discussed what they called the 18 best educational games. They broke it down into 4 categories in which I will pick from each of them games to discuss and then I will conclude with the games I picked that fits into the overall topic.
Reading, Phonics and Vocabulary
For this category two games actually stood out to me more than the others. The first being Boggle Jr. and the second being Tall Tales. The first for younger kids and the second for all the talkers in the family (young and old).
Boggle Jr. helps children to learn to spell simple 3 or 4 letter words. You put a card into the holder which covers the spelling and then the child must find the letters on the dice and put them into the tray to spell the word. At the time of this posting, Amazon should have our copy out for delivery so my daughter can play. Non-Parker Brothers versions of the game is called Matching Letter which are the same price as Boggle Jr.
Tall Tales is a story telling game in which you draw one of the 24 story cards that has a picture of a scene on it and then draw from a bag of 50 game pieces items to add to your own story. There is no scoring in the game and each story will be based on each person’s own imagination. This game does have a small expansion to it that adds 14 people and four additional story cards. 
Geography
Ticket to Ride is the game that made the list and since most people are familiar with the game the only thing I can say is that there is a Ticket to Ride First Journey game that is geared to those a little younger and the various expansions to the main games add more country maps to help people learn more about a country or region. 
Mathematics and Money Management
Monopoly made the list which is a game that can be fun for young and old and does the principles of mathematics and money management. Not much more to say about this game since most gamers and non-gamers recognize this game.
The all the other games that made this category is by a company called Learning Resources and from what I quickly searched about them is that most of their products (more than just games) are geared towards teachers in a school setting covering a lot of school subjects too. 
Strategy & Problem Solving
Chess and Catan made the list for this category. Both of these are great games in their own right. Let me explain a bit more for each.
Chess is a well-known worldwide game that has been around for centuries. It is a game in which you have a targeted goal (get the King) and various pieces (each type has its own movement) to help you achieve your goal. Chess is a game in which as you get better at it, you can plan moves in advance before executing them as well as anticipating what your opponent may or may not do as well. If you find yourself in a sticky situation, you use your problem solving skills to get out of the jam (unless you are in a checkmate).
This is a timeless classic which both young and old can enjoy together. I may not be a chess master, but I do enjoy playing it win or lose. 
Catan (Settlers of Catan) is a staple game for everyone’s modern board game collection. A game build around an island in which you need to build villages, gain resources, expand, and more. It is a great learning game and as the author of the article pointed out, there are 143 different ways you can get the 10 point needed to win the game. If you don’t know Catan yet, I would highly recommend that you look into it. It is an excellent gateway game into the wonderful world of board games. 
My Picks
Take Off! is a long out-of-print (OOP) game in which I had found it at a neat game store in downtown Seattle 20+ years ago. It is a fun geography game in which you fly your airplanes (players decide how many to use) across the globe via specific routes from Hawaii to Hawaii, travelling west. You roll colored dice and decide along which route your plane with go. Information cards and flags are also shown for all the countries of the world.
It is a great game that teaches strategy and geography. I wish that the game was still being made with all the changes to the countries of the world but I still have my copy of the game and I will tach my daughter it when she is a little older
(with telling her this is how the world look when her daddy was growing up).
Timeline is a series of games that can be combined together which you have a certain amount of cards in your hand and in order to win you must place the cards into the proper place in the timeline, if you are wrong in the timeline you take another card. What I like about the game is that is covers various subjects and if you don’t know something, you will get the chance to learn a little about it.
Do we have to learn??
You know that each time I play a game, I learn something new. Whether it is new rules (or corrected ones), new concepts, or new strategies, I feel that if you don’t pick up on something each time you play you are missing out.
I truly believe that after you die the one thing that you take with you into the afterlife is knowledge; that is earth’s truest riches. What you learn down here is taken with you into the heavens. So does that mean heaven has board games??? I sure as heck hope so. I bet you there are games up there being played that those here on earth haven’t even conceptualized yet and are being beta-tested by the great people who once lived here.
....even "Angels" play chess.
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