Scrabble - Variations For A Rainy Day

Scrabble has proven itself, since inception, to be a valuable learning tool. The game of Scrabble combines spelling, vocabulary and math in a hands-on approach to learning. In fact, Scrabble's history proves the initial observations of Scrabble's inventor to be correct. As the word is being spelled, the player is visually seeing the letter and placing in it's correct location.

There have been many variations of Scrabble game play, all based on the specific desires of the person(s) playing it. Scrabble has, as has many other board games, spawned it's own 'Jr.' version. The purpose of these 'Jr.' versions is to cater to children between the ages of 5 and 8. This particular version has words already spelled out on the game board, and relies on the luck of the draw from the 'pot' for the child player. This version provides the younger player to practice spelling words. This game consists mainly of three-letter words and expands to five-letter words.

What do you do if you don't have a 'Jr.' present on a rainy day? And you want to play Scrabble? Try playing Scrabble forming two to three letter words only. This will, of course, allow the younger ones who are at home with you to play along. Not only will you be teaching them without them realizing it, you will be spending quality time together. Perhaps even more interesting is the child's self esteem improvement.

Chances are, your children are in the pre-teen stage. A suggestion would be to play using only names of countries, cities, and major bodies of water. While this will not teach geographical locations of countries, but it will provide name recognition, and proper spelling. Again, you will not only be teaching them without them knowing it, you will be spending quality time together. A recommendation, when plausible, is to provide a world map, and a travel atlas. This version would assist in geographical locale, in addition to learning to read an index of an atlas.

Yet another possibility, for rainy-day Scrabble, would be to restrict the word use to that of names and titles of Presidents and world leaders. This variation would not only teach the proper spellings of these names, it would provide name recognition. In addition, it could also be a lesson in world politics. This would also teach the names of all of the Presidents. In this variation, the rules would be relaxed to allow for intersecting names.

Another variation of Scrabble that may prove to be more challenging, would be to restrict words to those from a foreign language. This may not provide proper punctuation. Some letters such as the Spanish 'e', as in sueno, has a lilt above it. However, it will teach the generally proper spelling.

A mathematical version of Scrabble for a rainy day, would be 'Math Counts'. While still teaching spelling would be to restrict words to a set minimum point value. In this way, players are encouraged to be more particular about the words they use. This method will encourage the player to be more conscious of the words respective point value, prepping them for more advanced game play.

Happy rainy day gaming!