We’ve been playing quite a bit of Scrabble lately (well, Sonia and Zoe haven’t!). Lisey joins us sometimes, but mostly it’s been Joshua, Mr. FG, and me. Being the brainy person he is, Joshua is none too shabby at Scrabble, and Mr. FG and I have to work to beat him.
I’m not much of a game person, but the few that I do really enjoy are the type that involve words, and Scrabble is in that group. CandyLand, not so much…I just play that one because it makes Zoe so happy!
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Have you tried Quiddler? It is a really fun word game my daughter discovered for our family last year.
Quiddler is an awesome game! We heard about it from a family member and i immediately ran out and bought a deck. Good game! It’s a nice step away from Scrabble.
Have you tried Scattergories? It’s a word-and-thought game. Each person gets a card with a long list of categories. Each round starts with a randomly chosen letter, each person needs to write down an entry in each of his categories that begins with that letter. One point per category filled. Easily turned into a team game. IIRC there’s the regular version, the kids’ version, and I hear there’s a Bible version.
Another fun game is Encore, which is a team-based singing game. Each team has 30 seconds to come up with songs that include a certain word or idea, then the other team goes, and so one till a team runs out (some idiot included “love” in the idea category – we threw that one out or the game would have never ended). Note: according to Amazon reviews, the old Parker Bros version (which is what I have) is better than the redesigned modern version.
I LOVE Scattergories but haven’t played it in such a long time! It’s really fun to play and the more people to play the better! It’s really funny to see what words people come up with that are unique so their word won’t get deleted because someone else had the same word!
Amen to that — have you tried (and I hesitate to suggest this HUGE time-suck!) online Boggle? True, it’s a solitary version but, Oooh, so addictive! Was a regular Boggle fan growing up, when I could watch the dinosaurs outside my window as I played. Now, it’s even more fun online and you get to compete against players all over if you like. Plus, in virtual gameland, there’s no annoying sound of 16 letter cubes banging around each turn. Have had to accept that I am powerless over Boggle . . .:)
Another fun word game is Up Words. It has letter tiles like Scrabble, but the board is smaller. You can stack letters, up to five high, to create new words. We picked our game up at a thrift store for unter $2.
We also picked up a game called Typo at Ollie’s after Christmas, for $1.99. It uses letters on cards and on your turn you add a letter to the front or back of an existing row of letter(s) and then name a word that starts with those letters. We’ve enjoyed playing it.
We like Bananagrams. Similar to Scrabble but without a board and you all play at the same time with your own tiles so it’s much faster moving. You win by using all your tiles but the length of words doesn’t matter so it’s a nice way to include younger kids who can’t handle Scrabble length words yet.
I see that Jenny suggested Bananagrams already. I wanted to post about it as well. My daughter got it as a gift and it has proven to be super fun. It’s easy to play a quick game of it – though we usually all want to play multiple rounds. I highly recommend it!
We LOVE Scrabble here! Mostly, just my mom and I play. My dad and my husband are not big Scrabble fans. I also bought my mom the game Scrabble Slam for Christmas this year. We haven’t played it yet, but it looks fun. And, someone else above mentioned Quiddler. I agree…it’s a GREAT game! We are a big game family here. It’s cheap entertainment and we get to spend time together. I went on maternity leave for my first child 2 wks ago, so playing games has REALLY helped make the time go fast! *Crossing my fingers* that he gets here this week! If not, I go in on Friday to be induced. So, it’s games until then! LOL!
My oldest just received Ticket to Ride this Christmas. Only 5 max can play at a time (unless someone is on a team). Love it! You build train tracks to connect destinations, it teaches geography (somewhat) and it’s very strategic. It’s also a beautiful looking game with all the old-fashioned turn of the century illustrations. (19th to 20th century change, that is!)