Boggle is a word game about finding as many words in a small grid of letter cubes in a short period of time. Boggle tests word knowledge and your ability to quickly find words in the grid, as each player has the same 3 minute interval to find those words. Unlike many popular word games, Boggle is a test of pure word skill without a whole lot of randomness or luck added in. That’s beca...
Three Popular Word Games Word games are good distractions because they’re educational and fun at the same time. I remember playing word games in school when the teacher needed to kill some time or when I would finish an assignment early. Word games train your brain to think more clearly about words and language, and allow for a little friendly competition. There are all sorts of word games, ...
How to Play the Apples to Apples Board Game Apples to Apples is one of the most popular board games at family gatherings around my house these days. Apples to Apples lets the people with big vocabularies show off (a little) without alienating those who aren’t wordsmiths. Without turning the game into a complete luck fest, Apples to Apples lets all kinds of people–including kids–c...
Swapping Letter Tiles in Scrabble Games One little-known Scrabble rule is the one which lets you swap letters during your turn. The reason the Scrabble letter-swapping rule is so little-used, though, is because you have to forfeit your chance to place a word on the board that time. Since this is a crippling action in most competitive games, most people prefer to place small, low-scoring words that...
Official Rules and Penalties for Challenging Words in Scrabble Whether you’re playing competitive Scrabble at an officially sanctioned tournament or you’re playing with the family around the kitchen table, there’s no more dramatic moment in the Scrabble board game than when someone decides to challenge a word. This often is the moment which decides the outcome of the game. Since ...
Scrabble Terms Using V in Them “V” is another of those Scrabble letters which present problems for newcomers to the game. If you’ve memorized the list of V words, though, the V becomes an opportunity to score big points. Here are the lists of 3-letter, 4-letter, and 5-letter words containing the letter “v”, so you can capitalize the next time you have the good luck to...
Using J-Words in Word Games The letter “j” is one of the pivotal letters in Scrabble, due to its relatively high point level and its rare usage in the English language. Because so many of our names start with “J”, you tend to think there are a lot of words you can build with the letter. But once you have a j in your rack, the unstudied Scrabble player suddenly realizes how ...
Scrabble Word Lists Contain the Letter X Anyone who has ever played Scrabble knows the “x” can be a troublesome tile to possess, especially in an endgame scenario. While there are worse letters to possess, the high score value of the “X” should encourage you to learn the best x-words to play in the high-scoring spaces of the board. Below is a list of the words you’ll ...
Easy Online Crossword Puzzles Crossword puzzles are a favorite pastime for people all over the world (not just for Scrabble players). Doctors encourage their patients to play word games like crossword puzzles to keep their minds sharp, and people who write for a living often sing the praises of crossword puzzles for getting the creative juices flowing. I like to do a crossword puzzle with my morni...
How to Make Crossword Puzzles for Free Online If you’re a teacher, a Sunday School instructor, a tutor, or just an overworked parent trying to find something to keep your kids busy, knowing how to make crossword puzzles is a great skill. My son loves to do crossword puzzles, and when I sit him down with a crossword I created based on his school vocabulary lessons, he doesn’t even real...
Online Printable Crossword Puzzles for Free I’m a crossword puzzle addict. I got the bug when I was in my early teens, and like lots of other crossword junkies, I came by my addiction honestly. My parents are New York Times subscribers, almost exclusively for the crossword puzzle. They like to relax before and after work by working that famous puzzle together, and as I grew up I became as f...
Dolch Word Games Invented in 1948 by Dr. Edward W. Dolch, the Dolch Word List is a collection of 325 words that must be easily recognized in order to be fluent in the reading of English. Dolch compiled his list of 95 nouns and 220 “service words” by looking at words commonly found in children’s literature of the time. The idea behind this word list is to establish a list of words...