How to play Kidscrabble
Who’s it for?
Kidscrabble is a fun and educational game for 2 to 4 players, ages 3 to 5. Guidance by older children or adults is recommended.
Synopsis: Basically, Kidscrabble is a simplified version of Scrabble™ or Bananagrams™, except “words” are sequences of the letters of the alphabet placed in alphabetical order. The educational value is in learning the letters of the alphabet, learning to take turns, counting, celebrating success, etc.
What’s needed?
How to begin?
Players take turns
Kidscrabble is a fun and educational game for 2 to 4 players, ages 3 to 5. Guidance by older children or adults is recommended.
Synopsis: Basically, Kidscrabble is a simplified version of Scrabble™ or Bananagrams™, except “words” are sequences of the letters of the alphabet placed in alphabetical order. The educational value is in learning the letters of the alphabet, learning to take turns, counting, celebrating success, etc.
What’s needed?
- A bunch of tiles, about ¾ to 1 inch square, each with a letter of the alphabet on it. (You can use tiles from a Scrabble™ game or from Bananagrams™ if you have them.)
- A flat playing surface such as a table top or Scrabble™ Deluxe Edition board, which has ridges to help align the tiles.
- Optional: One rack per player, capable of holding hold about 7 tiles
- Optional: For youngest players, the letters of the alphabet, written in order.
How to begin?
- Place the letter tiles face down in the middle of the table. Mix them up. This is the pool.
- Each player draws 7 tiles* from the pool. Each player should look at their tiles. Tip: Arrange them in alphabetical order.
- Players wishing to go first announce the length (number of tiles) in their longest alphabetical sequence. For example, a child with letters A, A, D, E, F, Y, Z will announce “I have 3 in a row.” The player with the longest unbroken sequence of letters in alphabetical order begins by placing that sequence on the table or board, left to right.
Players take turns
- The next player clockwise (to the left of the previous player) places letter tiles (left-to-right or top-down*) across any already-played sequence of tiles to form another sequence, in the usual way for Scrabble™ or Bananagrams™. Playing letters before or after an existing sequence is also allowed, as long as the result is in alphabetical order. (See example 2 below.) If tiles are played next to another letter tile, this additional sequence of must also be in alphabetical order. (See example 3 below.)
- The player replenishes their set of 7* tiles by drawing (fishing) the necessary number of tiles from the pool.
- Play continues clockwise until all tiles have been “fished” from the pool and all players have gotten one more chance to play their best sequence of tiles.
Example 1.
- Player 1 plays DEFG horizontally. This sequence earns 4 points.
- Player 2 plays CDE vertically, ending at the “F” from DEFG to form CDEF. This sequence earns 3 points* because 3 tiles were played.
- Player 1 plays DEFG horizontally. This sequence earns 4 points.
- Player 2 plays C to the left of DEFG and HI to the right of G, forming CDEFGHI. This play earns 3 points* because 3 tiles were played.
- Player 1 plays DEFG horizontally. This sequence earns 4 points.
- Player 2 plays HIJ horizontally with the top of the H touching the bottom of the G, forming DEFG with HIJ below and to the right of the DEFG. This is allowed because the 2-letter sequence “GH” is in alphabetical order from G downward. This play earns 3 points* because 3 tiles were played.
Scoring
*Optional variations:
- Scoring is optional. The goal is to have fun while practicing the letters of the alphabet.
- Each tile placed correctly by a player scores 1 point.*
- Optional: Keep track of scores with “gates”: Gates are built with 1 to 4 vertical “pickets”: | | | |
The fifth point scored is shown by a horizontal or diagonal line through the 4 vertical pickets. -|-|-|-|-
This makes it easy to total up all of the points. The player with the most gates wins. If two players have the same number of gates, then the number of “loose” pickets are compared. With this scoring system, it’s unlikely that any player will need to count higher than 10.
*Optional variations:
- All optional variations must be agreed by all players before the game begins!
- If the game goes too quickly with 7 tiles per player, try playing with 6 tiles per player.
- Ordinarily, letter sequences must be in alphabetical order from left to right or from top to bottom. Optionally, allow letter sequences to run from right to left or bottom to top.
- Alternate scoring: Also count any letters used from an existing sequence. Example: If sequence CDE is played against an “F”, count the “F” also, for a total of 4 points instead of 3. If more than one sequence is formed (see example 3) then count the letters in each sequence. (GH and HIJ in example 3, for 5 total points.)
Support the developer
You can support the developer of Kidscrabble by buying any of Peyton Reese’s books or ebooks. Thank you!
