As the weather gets cooler and the days shorter, I’m starting to think about indoor entertainment for my kids. At a family dinner recently, an uncle pulled out the game Bananagrams. I had never played before, but was very curious about the banana shaped bag with all the little pieces. Turns out the bag is filled with letter tiles (similar to Scrabble, but with no letter values), and each person (or team, in our case- too many people) draws a certain number to start. Then, when everyone is ready, the fun begins! Players rapidly turn over their tiles and try to make a crossword pattern of any words they can come up with. Once all the letters are gone, the player who uses all their letters in real, correctly spelled words is the winner.

Now maybe you are thinking “But my kids don’t know big words. They would hate this.” Ah, but the beauty of Bananagrams is that smaller words are actually easier to link together, and therefore best to use. Cake is better than supercilious, and less painful to take apart if you run out of combinations. This would be a great place to practice sight words, which the Wanna Have Fun Hen recommended in her hints for reading. And there’s no reason you couldn’t use all the letters in a family crossword and skip the race component of the game.

Kids of limited reading/spelling ability will find this game fun, and it will only get better as they improve their skills. It’s also a heck of a lot of fun for grownups, and Hens, I’m going to get my own set for our next dinner party!