Bananagrams is a fast-moving word game consists of 144 ivory-like letter tiles in a fun, zippered banana pouch. The game play is a mixture of Boggle and Scrabble. Players place the Bananagrams tiles face down on the table and randomly select 21 tiles. They then flip their letters and simultaneously race to create as many intersecting/interconnecting words as possible. Essentially, Bananagrams is a speed scrabble game in which everyone plays as fast as they can.

Bananagrams is a fun, fast-paced, family word game!

A combination of boggle and scrabble.

Bananagrams is great family fun and educational.

Just grab and go - Bananagrams portability makes it great for travel!

2 to 8 players, ages 7 and up.

Charis Games Review: Bananagrams Game - and Award Winning Anagram Game

Bananagrams is one of our best selling family word games.  It is similar to Take One or Speed Scrabble.  Bananagrams is a good choice for a 10 minute filler game or a family travel game.  In Banagrams, players receive 21 letter tiles an race to play all of their tiles as fast as they can.  Once you play all of your tiles, you yell "peel," and everyone must take an additional tile.  A unique rule to Bananagrams is the "dump" rule.  If you want to get a letter, you can "dump" it by placing it back in the middle and replacing it with three new letters.  The first player to place all of their tiles wins.  A round of Bananagrams typically lasts 5 to 10 minutes.

Awards:

• 2009 TOTY Game of the YEAR award
• Oppenheim Toy Portfolio- Best Toy Award Gold Seal
• iParenting Media Winner Award
• Good Toy Award 2006- Play Matters Gold Award Winner
• Dr. Toy Best Products Winner
• Right Start Best Toy Award
• Parent's Choice Recommended
• Creative Child Magazine- Creative Toy Awards 2007- Top Toy Of The Year Award

TDMonthly Review of Bananagrams

Beth Carroll, Psy.D., is a professional psychologist who specializes in child intervention and development. She works with children in many capacities, including providing early intervention services to infants and toddlers and conducting play therapy and psycho-educational assessment with children and adolescents. She has also provided private childcare for families for more than 22 years. Her diverse experience working with children has enabled her to see firsthand how playing with toys can be one of the richest sources of learning and communication for kids.

Dr. Carroll peels through the layers of fun in a new word game.

First Impressions
Unlike Scrabble and other word games, Bananagrams does not require a board.  The game includes 144 letter tiles that fit into a compact banana-shaped cloth carrying case, which makes it perfect for travel.  The object of the game is to create as many words as possible from selected tiles.   All words need to be interconnected by a shared letter.  Once the tile pile is depleted, the player who is able to use all of his or her tiles first wins.
 
Developmental Stage
Word games build vocabulary, spelling and word-recognition skills.  Bananagrams also targets creativity, because the goal is to use every single tile — requiring players to deconstruct existing words to make letters available for other words.

Recommendation
Kids will go bananas for Bananagrams! I was also able to adapt this game for some of the younger children with whom I work; they had fun pulling individual letters out and identifying them.