Fast Scrabble

Fun and educational.  I love when those two words work in the same sentence.  Our pastor's wife taught us a very fun way to play Scrabble, one which everyone can play and no one has to wait their turn.

Leave the Scrabble board in the box, and turn all the tiles upside down on the table.  Everyone draws seven tiles at random.  Put the remaining tiles where everyone can reach them.

On the count of three, everyone turns their tiles right side up.

Make your own Scrabble grid with the letters you drew, following normal Scrabble rules for forming words.

The first person to use all their tiles says, "Draw!".

Each person picks another tile and tries to incorporate it into their own Scrabble puzzle. Puzzles can be rearranged at will for as long as the game is in play.  Again, the first person to use all their tiles says, "Draw!"

Play continues this way until all  the extra tiles are used up, and either someone goes out or no one can play.

Score the normal way, subtracting your left-over tiles from your total.  Shared letters are added twice.

To include smaller children, allow them to make words without shared letters.  You could also allow proper nouns.  Or make all the bigger people draw two tiles, while younger ones draw only one.

For larger groups, combine two or more sets of Scrabble tiles.

Since starting this post, I learned that this is the same way Bananagrams is played!  Since we already have Scrabble, we'll save our money. :D