Grown Up Scrabble for Beginning Readers
This post was sponsored by Nuffnang.
Scrabble is a favourite game around here. My husband’s family love to play and they are all good at it, really good at it. My kids have grown up watching me get beaten at Scrabble by their Grandmother, their Aunt and their Father again and again.
Despite my dismal attempts at the game the girls have been keen to play for a long time. We have Junior Scrabble which is lots of fun and a great game for kids, but it’s not quite the same as the real thing. So when we opened the package from Nuffnang and discovered a brand new, grown up, Scrabble game, they were ready to play right then and there. I’d been brewing some ideas of how they could successfully play the real deal for a while so it seemed as good a time as any to try them out.
We set out the board and collected 7 letters each, just like in a regular game. We played by the regular rules but to keep it simple we ignored the special scoring squares on the board and we assigned all letters one point each.
The challenge for my 7 year old girls was to find a spot on the board where they could make a word with their letters. Initially it was all about making a word, any word. As the game progressed they began to realise that the more letters they put down, the more points they would get, so they started trying to make longer words, using more letters.
The girls needed a little help now and then, sometimes just a suggestion of where they could put a word on the board, and sometimes help with making an actual word. I think the more they play the better they’ll get at seeing the spaces on the boards and putting the letters together in their heads to make words.
My four year old can’t read, so he obviously needed lots of help to join in, but that wasn’t going to stop him.
I played with him, suggesting words he could put down and letting him choose which ones he wanted to use. It was great practice for him as he learns to identify all the letters. He was also able to count up the number of letters he put down and tell me his score and count out the right number of letters to replace them.
At the end of the game the girls helped to tally up the scores and decide who had won.
So in the time it took for us to play a quick game of scrabble the girls had practised their reading, spelling, logical thinking and maths skills and my big boy had worked on letter recognition, pre-reading skills and counting, and, as it turned out, I was beaten at yet another game of scrabble!
To win your own ‘grown up’ scrabble game just leave a comment on this post and tell me your best story about winning or losing a board game. – This competition is now closed
Entries are open to Australian residents only and close October 28th when I will choose one commenter to go into the Nuffnang draw. View the terms and conditions for more information.
{Disclosure: this is a paid post sponsored by Nuffnang. We received a scrabble game as part of the compensation. Opinions expressed in this post are purely my own.}
I love Scrabble! I recently bought the Junior version for my darlings and you are right, it’s not the same as the Senior version. We would lve to be in the running to win a new Scrabble board! Thanks.
My husband says that I seem like a nice and sweet person until you play board games with me and then I turn into a take no prisoner ultra competitive person. He will only play with me if I play “nice” :-D
Oh gosh, monopoly!!!! I might not always win, but it has all my favourite things – property, money, and best of all – company. I have to say I don’t own a scrabble set, might be a good one to enjoy with the kids.
I love Monopoly – my fav game as a teenager, I use to always beat my brother when playing!
I haven’t played scrabble yet, but sounds like a great game!
Two incidents – one is a pictionary type game where my partner drew an eye and a crab and I had to guess what the word was. My guess?
No, it wasn’t seafood. I instead guessed I-crab. At which point the entirer party stops, stares and starts choking on their laughter. After our time was up my partner, very kindly, explained that the drawings were for ‘seafood’. My husband laughed until he cried and we still crack each other up mentioning I-crab.
The other is a scrabble incident. I, the lady with a degree in literature and masters in info science, got soundly beaten. By my ten year old cousin. In front of my entire family…
i love playing scrabble.
My most memorable game was when I beat my nieghbour Di Tibbits by making “ouija” on a triple score on the last move! PS Her late husband George couldn’t bear to play with us because we played ‘Lady’s scrabble’ – we helped each other on any or all moves and delighted in ‘good words’ like lavender or syphilis. ( she is a microbiologist with an interest in medial history).
SNAKES & LADDERS is a very excieting game. Once me and my friend were playing it and to my surprise a snake on number 99 bit me 6 times in a row and i finally lost that game. For me its still a favourite and i love to play it with my kids..
I still remember playing Monopoly with my younger brother and when it looked like he wasn’t going to win he would just tip the board over bringing the game to an abrupt halt!
I love playing board games Trivial Pursuit would have to be my all time favourite! Shame my husband doesn’t quite share my love of them! Will have to train my 2 daughters to love playing board games ;-)
I love Scrabble. Actually love all board games. I love it now the kids are getting a bit bigger and can and want to play too. At the moment I love Connect 4 (I know not played on a board but still in the games section of Big W) And the Cars board game, though I am yet to win that one.
Scrabble was a family favourite growing up. We would play board games each night at our holiday house. I have lots of happy scrabble memories!! Hopefully me little boy (10m) will true up enjoying playing Scrabble too!
Boggle was always my favourite as a kid (well, adult too!) but it’s the only one I seem to have the knack of, so nobody will play against me anymore :-( Scrabble, on the other hand, is where I need lots of practice. I have been playing Words with Friends on my iPhone and keep getting beaten and it’s starting to get embarrassing. Perhaps a proper real life Scrabble board would help?
My sister always decides the rules of whatever board game we are playing. The “rules” tend to be changed multiple times depending on if she is winning or not. Being a rule changer, we now tell my son he is doing a “rozie” whenever he decides the rules need to be changed or he is caught cheating!
What a great idea about how to play with the kids. I have been consistently beaten by both my parents as long as I can remember but now I am able to kick my husband’s arse EVERY time. It’s a wonder that he still will play with me?!
One day a long time ago I had a game of Monopoly with my best friend (who ended up becoming my husband). We started at about 7pm and kept playing that game, determined to see it through to the end… but I think we gave up somewhere between 2 and 3 ‘oclock in the morning!!!
When i mentioned to my mother in law I wanted to teach the kids scrabble she offered me hers which I gladly accepted. When we got home and starting playing I found a note to her from her parents wishing her a happy birthday. We played and had fun but returned her special birthday gift to her as I didn’t want my kids to ruin or lose pieces. It was old but in immaculate cond. So I would love my own scrabble to hopefully pass down from one generation to next.