Before mobile phones and Youtube were a thing, we used to spend our 2-month long summer vacations playing board games with friends, cousins, and family members. Can you list down all the Games you played? There may be letter games, Building Games, spelling games and which one was your favourite?
Scrabble was one of those games which we used to play all day long. Even today if you ask someone to play a game of Scrabble, they would happily agree because no one can say no to Scrabble.
It is a game for all ages, that is if they can read and form words. You can grab your five-year-old and your 70-year-old dad, and make this into a fun family game.
There are different categories for board games. For example, Monopoly would come under games that are about mathematics, hence all the money and counting. Whereas chess and scrabble would come under mind games. Chess is a game that requires a lot of intellect, you really need to think with all four sides of your brain to become a chess champion.
Scrabble on the other hand doesn’t require a lot of intellectual capabilities. It is a fun mind-game, rather than intense. If you are good at forming words then you will be able to beat every single friend that challenges you to a game of scrabble.
Scrabble is the best way for you to spend time with your kids. It is a fun learning activity. This will help your child improve their vocabulary without having to sit behind a desk. This will be a fun educational game without them even feeling like they are studying or learning anything.
If you did not come across Scrabble as a child or even as an adult, don’t worry, let us explain what Scrabble really is.
What is Scrabble?
Scrabble was developed in 1938 by an American architect called Alfred Mosher Butts. It is an indoor board game that can be played by either 2 or 4 players. The board is divided into a 15 x 15 grid of squares. You put together letters to form words that can be as small as a 3 letter word or as elongated as a 15 letter word.
Scrabble comes in 31 different languages, people all over the world love to play this game with their friends and families. It even comes in Braille for people who are Scrabble enthusiasts but sadly cannot see.
Scrabble is a great family game. You can have weekly tournaments at your house, or even in the neighbourhood. This can be a fun learning activity for children, and a great way to strengthen family bonds.
Here are some benefits that you can obtain by playing Scrabble.
Benefits of playing Scrabble
Expands Vocabulary:
Scrabble expands your vocabulary. This one is self-explanatory as Scrabble is all about forming words. Initially, you can help your kids, give them hints, and make it easier for them to understand the game. They can also refer to dictionaries when they find themselves stuck on a few words.
Moreover, when playing with someone else, the other person may form words that you are not aware of. You can ask your child to keep a dictionary with them, and they can instantly look up the meaning of the words they are not familiar with. This will also help them correct their Spelling. People that play Scrabble are quick to learn about prefixes and suffixes. And when you learn that, playing Scrabble can become a lot easier.
Improves Memory:
Playing Scrabble improves your child’s memory. Once they look at the letters at hand, their memory starts working like clockwork. They start to think and recall every single word that could be made by joining the letters in front of them.
Develops Problem Solving Abilities:
They also develop problem-solving abilities as a game of Scrabble requires them to deal with the problem at hand, which is to form a word from the different letters in front of them. It is like fitting the pieces of a puzzle together, with the puzzle pieces being the letters and the puzzle being the words.
Quick Response Time:
Scrabble also improves the response time of your child. You will notice this too. If you really want them to improve in this area, you can get a timer or an hourglass and watch how they figure out words within that span of time. This quicker response time will become a part of their everyday lives as they do different tasks.
Improves Cognitive Capabilities:
Scrabble is a way to improve cognitive capabilities in children. And studies show that frequent cognitive exercises prevent Alzheimer’s and dementia. If you form new words that your child is unfamiliar with, this will intrigue them to find the meaning of these words and then read or get information related to it.
Strategic Thinking:
You may not think so, but Scrabble is a game of strategy. Predicting your opponent’s moves, thinking on the spot when faced with a ‘useless’ set of letters, studying the board to see if your letters can fit anywhere to form a word, requires a lot of thinking and planning. This strategic exercise will be very useful for your child later in life.
Enhances Creativity:
Scrabble is a game that forces you to be creative. Your child will have to open up the dictionary in their mind, think about all those books they read, or even a word they exchanged with someone in school, and they will have to form new words that are not on the board.
Improves Mathematical Skills:
Along with improvements in their linguistic abilities, your child will also be able to improve their mathematical skills. Scrabble is a great way for them to learn to add numbers. This is because of the scores they will obtain with each word they form on the board.
Strong Relationships:
Scrabble also helps build strong relationships. When you sit together with your family and spend hours playing a game a strong bond is formed. When nobody is too busy, and everyone enjoys family time, the relationship between family members is strengthened.
Emotional Benefits:
Your child will also be able to learn to cope with losses. They will find a healthy way to react when they lose a game. This is the most important thing a child needs to learn early in life. If they miss out on this training they will become an adult who cannot take no for an answer and destroys everything around them for a single loss.
Health Benefits:
Did you know that Scrabble gives you health benefits as well? I know you’re confused upon reading this but it is actually true. While playing Scrabble, you laugh at the silly words and just everything else in general and laughing/being happy releases endorphins. These are the happy hormones in our bodies. Endorphins also help reduce stress and negative energy.
So what are you waiting for? Go and grab that Scrabble board that has been sitting in your attic for ages, dust it off, and start playing to become the next world champion for Scrabble.
Bring the entire family together this weekend and play this amazing board game. It will also help you de-stress from all the work you did throughout the week and just kick back with some snacks and relax, and it will be a great activity for you to bond with your children.
