Word Fun with Bananagrams

I bought Bananagrams because I recently found myself at a very small bookstore, in a very small town where I killed an hour while my SBCBF looked in great detail at a sailboat that he wasn't going buy (just like the other 50 or so boats we've looked at, but I digress...), Anyway, after spending so much time there, I felt I should buy something and since I am way, way behind on my reading, I opted for the game in the yellow banana bag.

If you have ever played Speed Scrabble, this is pretty much the same game. If you have a Scrabble set, you can use the same letters. But it is nice not to have to break up the Scrabble set and with Bananagrams you get more duplicates of the interesting letters like Xs and Qs, not to mention the nifty carry-all bag.

Bananagrams was a big hit at our house. Both my kids (14 and 16) loved it. Here is what is good about this game:

• Everyone plays at once. No waiting for a turn.
  
• It makes spelling relevant. Throughout the game the kids were asking to see if they were spelling a specific word correctly.
• You have to think quickly to play.
• There are ample opportunities to try different strategies since you can rearrange your own grid at any point.
• Games last about 10 to 15 minutes so no one gets too discouraged if they are not doing well in a particular round.
• Playing this game makes you feel smart.

Here is how I knew we had a killer game. The other day, three of my 14 year old daughter's friends stopped by - two boys one girl. My daughter got them playing Bananagrams! It was a shining mommy moment.

Creative and Critical Thinking

Challenging Math Enrichment