This month as part of the Blogger Board Game Club with Asmodee we have been playing Bananagrams!  It's a game that I've seen around for years but never actually played, so I was really excited to be able to play it with the family.

Bananagrams comes in a small banana shaped pouch and includes letter tiles and instructions.  That is literally all that you need to play, which makes it ideal for travel.  We actually brought it along to a family Christmas celebration, and it was perfect for people of all ages to play.  The game is recommended for ages 7 and up, so I worked as a team with Ivy who is only 5.


Each player takes 21 tiles from the bunch in the middle of the table to begin and independently makes their own word grid out of all of their letters.  This makes it quite nice as a challenge to yourself as well, just trying to make as many words as you can without worrying about anyone else.  You are trying to make these words as quickly as you can to win, but I did reassure the children that it is mostly about making great words themselves.


If you can't make any more words with the tiles that you have you call out 'dump' and put back one of your letters into the bunch, but then you have to pick up three more tiles to replace it.


When you have used all of your tiles you call out 'peel' and each player has to pick up one new tile from the bunch.  This goes on until there are no tiles left (or less tiles than there are players) then whoever uses all of their tiles first is the winner.


The other players then check the winners' grid to make sure that all of the words are correct and useable in the game (no proper nouns or abbreviations) and if all is well then they are declared the winner.


The children both really enjoyed the game, even though they did need a little bit of help to make their words.  It is such a great game to reinforce spelling skills as well as quick thinking and following the rules.  It will be great to take with us when we travel as well as playing at home after school.  



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* This is a review post, we were sent Bananagrams to play with and write our honest opinions.*