Caution: Don’t eat actual soup while you’re playing this game. (We did – it was an issue. I’ll tell you at the end.)
Scrabble – Alphabet Scoop is a fun new game that you can play with kids who are at different levels of literacy and of different ages.
It’s basically a plastic soup bowl, with Scrabble letters dumped inside.
Everyone gets a card which has five words on it. The words are progressively harder, from 1 to 5.
Each person picks a word from their list. Then all at once, everyone starts scooping letters trying to find the letters that will form their word.
Adults use more difficult words while beginners use a short, easy word. (Or, in our household, daddy uses a more difficult word until he keeps winning anyway and mommy has to take him out of the game altogether.)
When someone scoops all of the letters that form their word, that round ends and they win. You win five times to win the game.
What I like about this game is that it has some great elements that you could use to create lots of different versions of it. For instance, toddlers would enjoy just pulling out letters and naming them, or perhaps making their sound. You could “race” your toddler to be the first one to guess the sound their letters make. Bigger kids might have to make up a silly sentence using all five words on their card.
All of the stuff goes into the pot when you’re done playing, for storage. The lid doesn’t fit tightly so a couple of rubber bands might not go amiss here.
We thought (well, I thought) it would be fun to actually eat soup while playing the Scrabble Alphabet Scoop game. Almost immediately my son lost one of his letters in the (real) soup. That’s a D you see covered with mushroom soup there. Hilarity ensued, as my son realized the irony – oh, the irony! – of the situation and ran off to the kitchen to clean the D.
Disclosure: Hasbro provided this review set of Alphabet Scoop. Well, after I asked ’em for it because I thought it looked good.
Game recommended for two to four players, ages 6+ – it retails for $19.99.
