Remember that game in school where the teacher would give you a big word and you had to see how many other words you could make out of it? That was always one of my favorite games in between tests and lessons, and I was really good at it. Still am. Not that I get a chance to practice that very often, mind you. We had a contest in 8th grade to see how many words we could make out of the word Washington. I won. The prize was a Snickers bar. The only reason I remember this is because I forgot my lunch that day, and without Washington and that Snickers bar, it would have been a very long day.
For as long as I can remember, we’ve always had alphabet letters on our fridge. When Nick was much younger, we had those Leap Frog sets where it will say the letter and sound it out and give example words, and then you could use the letters on the refrigerator to spell out words. Love Leap Frog! The Ex and I would make words and leave messages for each other. Now, you know, since we’re divorced, we kinda don’t do stuff like that. But I still do it all the time with the kids. And now Mystic.
The Leap Frog set long gone, we now have this weird collection of random wooden letter magnets that I got from a garage sale a few years ago. It wasn’t a full set at the time and with two moves since then, it has become even less full. So the challenge is even more fun. How many words can you make out of some crazy assortment of mismatched letters and not enough vowels? Mystic holds the record with six words.
I was itching to buy a new set of letters so we could all play along and spell out way more than Siam, and then I thought I would make some. In fact, I bought a package of wooden discs and some transfer letters and was just about to get started on it this weekend, but then inspiration struck. Scrabble tiles!
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