Friday, May 22, 2015

Cookie Spelling



I happened on bags of letter and number shaped animal-type crackers at the store...


...and decided if we (meaning me) are going to be stress eating this week anyway (we finally closed the sale on our old house, and have put in an offer on a new one - soooo much paperwork), we might as well get a spelling lesson out of it.

So, I sent the children to wash their hands, while I sorted the letter crackers (homemade sugar cookie letters would do just as well) out into a big bowl...


...ready for a Scrabble-style crossword game.  Our rules were pretty lax.

We each started with ten letters.


The first player spelled out a word, on which the other players played, moving around the table in turn...


...drawing new letters from the bowl to replace the ones played.


But, since we were playing with cookies, we added a rule.  If a player was not satisfied with the letters they drew, they had the option to eat one of their letters, and replace it with another from the bowl (only one per turn). 

And, since we were focusing more on spelling than actual game play, we allowed players to peek into the bowl, and choose whatever letters they wanted/needed as they drew them.  I was surprised how much the extra rules revved up the excitement of the game.

We had thought to play until we had used up all the cookies in the bowl, but there were a lot of cookies (maybe one bag would have been enough).

After about a half an hour, D (age 12) spelled "The End"...


 ....and it seemed like a good time to stop, at least until after dinner.

5 comments:

Dawn said...

Oh My! I want to find a bag or two of cookies now. What a great spelling lesson with fun rules. I remember the last time we sold one house and bought another. There is more paperwork involved than adopting a baby (Really there is!)! Hang in there.
Blessings, Dawn

Phyllis said...

It never would have occurred to me to switch up the rules! I love the eating of any unwanted letters.

Ticia said...

I remember seeing some letter gummies back when the kids were little back when they were learning their letters. I like the cookies better.

And I agree with Phyllis eating the unwanted letters is brilliant. I always dislike Scrabble because I end up with letters I can't use.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Eat your letters? That's a brilliant way to encourage spelling :D

MaryAnne said...

Houses are incredibly stressful to buy and sell. Congratulations on selling the old one, and I hope your offer is accepted!