Bananagrams - Games for All Ages

Toy Fair 2013 is just a few weeks away and I have been thinking about what my favorites were last year that I meant to write a full blog post about and didn’t get too.  Bananagrams – How did I miss it!  Here is the display of their games including Bananagrams, Appletters and Pairs in Pears.  Judee Cohen was very generous and sent me home with free samples to enjoy.  Great games for adults but don’t forget the kids.

Today my grandson, Zach, was here to have Pop give him a haircut and have lunch with us.  Zach is 3 1/2 and I can tell you he does NOT like getting a haircut.  It is a major project.  And so we like to have a positive experience after the haircut.  I had put these Appletters and Pairs in Pears games on the dining room table to take a picture of later for this blog post.  But Zach saw them and he wanted to play the games.  He is interested in games.  He is a little young for these games, but Grandma is pretty good at improvising.

First we opened the Appletters and Zach enjoyed making a long line with the letters while I was reading the directions.  The Pairs in Pears was on the table and he wanted to check that one out too.  

So we put away the Appletters and opened Pairs in Pears.  I was prepared for this one.  Zach made pairs of letters and I made pairs of words.  We traded letters a few times and Pop helped him arrange his pairs neatly. My daughter helped me make words.  So….we played Pairs in Pears in pairs.   You read that right – read it again.   

Here’s our final display.  We each counted our “pairs.”  Zach had made more pairs of letters than I had made pairs of words and he won.

This is a good game for grandparents to share with grandchildren.  Zach likes to play computer games and watch transformers on YouTube.  On babysitting night we always try to have some kind of craft project, Play Doh or game that we can enjoy together.  Since we babysit for more than four hours, we need to have things to do that will conserve grandparent energy.  These Bananagram games fit the bill. They are versatile and the tiles are a good quality.  They are packaged in a simple cloth package with no wasted space or packaging materials so they are very space efficient.  Good for travel and all ages – from pre-school to grandparents.  There are several sets of rules provided and you can make up your own just as I did.  

You can think about this game being educational for an early reader or vocabulary building for an older child, or like me, you can think about it just being good old fashioned fun without a lot of hoopla.  I understand that there is a new Pairs in Pears meant for ages 3 and up so I am looking forward to seeing that at Toy Fair. 

Check out the Bananagram website for more products and you can order them at Amazon.  Just click below.  Bananagrams is a three generation small company and you can find these games in specialty shops like Learning Express, bookstores and pharmacies.  Priced at $14.95 they are also a good buy.

Enjoy,

Marion