In just 4 minutes, players of Fast4Words add letters to a grid, making words to gain points. A combination of Boggle, Scrabble, Crossword Puzzles and a little Connect Four, this its a great skill-builder that keeps you on your toes as you try to gain points creating your words.
Another “wordie” game, Keesdrow is “Word Seek” backwards. Players are truly seeking words, and you’ll find them backwards, forwards, left, right, up, down and diagonally. The board changes with each game, so players can play again and again and always be challenged to find more words.
Both games are definitely for families with older kids, who can already read and have a good understanding of words as they can be backwards, forwards, diagonal, vertical and horizontal. We’ve also played without the kids, creating a great challenge for friendly-game-night. Educationally, they incorporate spelling and reading but, moreso, they’re great thinking and focusing games, with a bit of stragety. Wordies, be sure to put these two in your carts to add them to your collection.
Both games were provided as samples from their parent companies for this review.
. We received this as a birthday gift (from Zareen, thanks Zareen!) for my 4-year-old and its been a great family game for all of us. Its Memory with a twist. Instead of just turning over 2 cards and hoping they match, you push a spinner and it tells you if you are matching category, number or color. My babysitter was hooked after playing one Thursday, so that night I knew we had to check it out.
: This one was a sample and I was concerned that the kids wouldn’t enjoy it. Simply because it is for ages 8 and up. The 6-year-old found it, was intrigued by the box, and we opened it about a two weeks ago. I kid you not, we have played it nearly every day in the past 2 weeks. It is a challenging game of spacial relations with lots of rules. But if you have a little one with good spatial relations skills, like my 4-yo, this is a great game. You’ll definitely have to help out with score keeping and we did alter the rules a tad to make it less frustrating for the kids. This one is really fun for the whole family.
. This summer’s camp season was leaden with too many rainy days for my liking. It meant a lot of time indoors and not enough in the pool or on the tennis court. But the kids wouldn’t have known it. Each day they went to the game room and were introduced to new games. Apparently, the 6-year-old’s bunk loved Uno. C came home the 2nd day and asked if we could buy it. Fortunately, I had it in the gift closet and pulled it out. Since then, its become a game we play every sick day, every rainy day and, almost, every breastfeed when the kids are looking for something to do. Its one of the classics that every house needs. (And, as of this writing, its less than 
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sensor, and you’re likely to need at least one more if you use 2 remotes.
I have found memories of game night when I was a child and was eager to start the tradition with my own family. But my oldest only just turned three which felt like it limited the number of suitable board games we could play. Fortunately I’ve come across two that have been toddler-appropriate and great additions to our game repertoire. The first is a game called 
It’s no secret that I love playing games. Party games especially. Given the opportunity to test out the new game 
