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Photo: Abby Fox
Emma Bisonette, Laura Murphy and Grace Turchetta making words. BY ABBY FOX
It’s kind of like scrabble, but it doesn’t take nearly as long to play; there are fewer letters to make words with; and you can play against yourself.
The game, Bananagrams, is being tried out in fourth-grade classrooms at Hanaford Elementary School, to help kids with their word power and problem-solving skills.
And it’s fun, the students all said.
“It’s the hottest game in the United States right now,” said teacher Ric Saborio, who introduced Bananagrams, because his wife’s friend knows the man who invented it, Abe Nathanson, a local Rhode Islander, who donated several games to the school.
The kids play it as an enrichment activity once a week, Saborio said, and by the end of the school year, the fourth-grade will have a competition to see who’s really the “top banana.” Right now, the contender for that title seems to be Laura Murphy, who Saborio fondly calls “The Banana Queen,” because she’s come up with words faster than her peers every time the class has played it.
The game is competitive, because students are racing to see who will first make use of their allotted 21 letters, but the kids “help each other out,” Saborio said. “Nobody seems to get mad.”
He’s talked up the game enough that parents are starting to buy it and play it at home, too.
BANANAGRAM, from page 1
“It’s a nice way to solidify spelling,” he said. “It helps critical-thinking and problem- solving skills, and they love it; they’re learning without realizing it.” When asked about it, the students agreed that it does “make learning fun.”
Before long, Laura Murphy was yelling out out “Bananas!” and sure enough, she had all her words correct, and she even introduced a new one to the class: taw, a marble used as a shooting marble, when you play marbles. “I love spelling,” she said, smiling.
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