Are you a fan of Scrabble, but the slow play drives you nuts by leaving you with time to chew your fingernails down to the quick, make a mental inventory of your pantry, paint your toenails, and consider yelling things like, “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! YA SNOOZE, YA LOSE!!!, PLAY A WORD ALREADY!!!” ?
Oh wait. Maybe that’s just me.
In any case, if you like Scrabble, but would love it even better if it moved faster than the pace of drying paint, Bananagrams is the game for you!
This is our new favorite game! Each player basically plays his own little game of Scrabble, and the best part is there is no taking turns! Everyone plays as fast as he or she can, because the first person to use all the letters without any spelling errors is the winner.
It’s great for all ages, too! Our six year old can spell cat, stop, gas, and the like while the ten year old is spelling harder words. We go over general spelling rules while we play, so things like “double the consonant before adding a suffix” or “drop the final e before adding an ending” are being reinforced for the older ones and I remind the little ones “When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking”.
We love Bananagrams! You should give it a try!
This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday.
*This post contains affiliate links.
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This is one of our family’s favourite games! The youngest can’t keep up with the ‘big guys’, so we got her the Apples version last Christmas- it’s almost as fun as Bananagrams!
@coffeemamma,
The apple one is more geared to kids? Do tell.
@Ginger,
Here is the link:
http://www.bananagrams-intl.com/new_products_dec09.asp
Pairs in Pears looks like fun, too- I think I’ll be putting it on my youngest’s Christmas list!
Yes, Bananagrams is AWESOME!
I’ve actually never heard of this game – but love the idea of it! We are gonna have to get it soon!
We love that game too!
It’s always on the top sellers of Amazon, always wondered what it was all about!
Have you played “speed scrabble”? it is kind of like this game.
My parents have played Speed scrabble for years. No buying anything new. Just use the tiles in the Scrabble game you already have and each person makes their own “Scrabble” when you’ve put your tiles all in the crossword format, you say “take two” – -everyone at the table takes two and goes back to working.
You can tear it all apart and rebuild, if necessary. But watch out. When all the tiles are gone and someone “goes out” (finishes using all their tiles) every tile that is NOT in words in your own personal scrabble gets counted up and put on your score — highest score loses.
I just bought this yesterday with my 40% off Border’s coupon in preparation for a trip next week. I’m so glad to see this review! I was not sure if it was a good purchase or not.
Good idea!
I LOVE Bananagrams!!
My mom introduced me to Bananagrams! It’s pretty cool!
Can;t you just take any scrabble tiles and put them in any bag to have a bananagrams homemade version???? You can get scrabble replacement tiles pretty cheap.
I cant wait to try this ..my emerging reader will LOVE it! Thanks Connie!
This sounds like fun! I’m going to have to check it out.
I just learned about this game last week! Everyone is raving about how fun it is for the family.
I’ve always wondered what that game was about. I’ll have to get it. It sounds super fun. I cracked up at the part about watching paint dry. =) Is it bad when your playing a boardgame with your 3 year old and have to stop yourself from saying “your turn. come on. stay focused”? =)