Scrabble Gardening, a crossword board game with a garden theme, adds a new dimension to indoor and outdoor plant study and gardening with children. With the integration of gardens into school curriculum, the game is a perfect vehicle for practicing spelling, word meanings, prior knowledge, and understandings about plants and their environment.
The Game Plan
The game, recommended for ages eight and up, is played on a flat surface with a traditional Scrabble game board framed around the edges with a garden scene. As many as four players can play with the wooden letter tiles and tile racks in each game. Letter tiles are stored in a brown gardener’s tool tote bag.
As in the original Scrabble, players compete for the highest score by making and linking words with letter tiles marked with different points onto squares. Some squares give bonus double and triple letter and word scores. Children enjoy the competition and score keeping too.
Seed Packet Cards and Bonus Point Cards
Along with traditional letter tiles, the game adds two new features: 26 seed packet cards and 4 bonus point cards for the use of gardening words.
At the beginning of the game each player selects 7 letter tiles for spelling words. He also receives three seed packet cards to place upright in the letter rack. Each card is divided into three horizontal zones.
At the top of each card is a garden vocabulary word including propagate, biennial, and drought. A picture illustrates the word in the middle of the card. The bottom zone of the card states a move the player can choose to make, for example, “Extend a word on the board. Get a Double Word Score.”
Cards are replenished as used so there are always three in a player’s rack. A teacher and class could create sets of seed packet cards with the three zones and gardening tips targeting their specific plant and garden program.
The back of each card gives a Gardening Tip pertaining to the vocabulary word.
The bonus point cards list the number of points earned if a gardening word is spelled on the board. Word length determines points received.
Relaxing the Rules
Scrabble Gardening relaxes the rules of traditional Scrabble. Players may use common and Latin scientific plant names. Garden tool and garden technique words like spade, tiller, prune, and compost earn extra points depending on the length of the word. Names of public gardens like Chicago Botanic Garden or Winterthur are acceptable as are proper names of famous gardeners, horticulturists, and plant scientists like Carver, Burbank, or Mendel.
If the students decide on it prior to playing, local garden centers or local garden experts and extension agents could be named on the board. Even acronyms for gardening societies like ARS for the American Rose Society and products like NPK on fertilizer get extra bonus points.
Scrabble Gardening grows more than academic knowledge. The crossword game fosters camaraderie, collaboration, and conversation among participants.
Some schools may consider adding a concrete outdoor Scrabble Gardening game board to the playground near hopscotch and shuffleboard courts.
Inclement weather may dampen your outdoor school gardening plans, but Scrabble Gardening provides an indoor forecast for growing fun, friendship and facility with words.
Source
- Scrabble Gardening Game by USAopoly and Hasbro
Arlene Marturano - Arlene Marturano, an educator, consultant, master gardener, and writer advocates gardens as a context and gardening as a tool for ...
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