Scrabulous

The housework is finished and the kitchen is full of newly purchased items. I figure I deserve a break and that means you deserve a blog entry. Now is a good time to tell you about my new addiction: Scrabulous. I have become addicted to Facebook and one of my favorite applications over there is a version of Scrabble that allows you to play with your friends online. Scrabble is one of those games that is fun and great for the brain all at the same time. I don't know about you, but my brain could use some exercise. Having three babies in four years, surviving on little sleep, and having my life focused on being a mom really wreaked havoc on my brain cells. Ever since I began taking classes again, started writing more, and focused on myself some of those cells have returned - perhaps I've even earned some new ones.

While doing some searching online the other day, I discovered that Scrabulous has it's own site. Anyone can go, sign up for free, and play Scrabble against others, a "robot", or oneself. It's a great way to build your vocabulary, improve your spelling, and just give your brain a workout. Of course, there's always the old fashioned version of playing at home on a gameboard. The other night I got our old Scrabble box out of the closet, dusted off the lid, and Chuck and I have played a few rounds since (I'm up two games to one in case you're curious.) This is what the board looked like when we completed our game the other night:





Owen has even joined in the fun. He's a great speller and enjoys doing those activity sheets where you have to make smaller words out of a larger word or phrase. I thought Scrabble would be right up his alley and I was right. He and I played a short game yesterday and he seemed to really enjoy it. He did need some help from time to time, but I was greatly impressed when he came up with the word "control" on his own (I had looked at his available letters and hadn't even seen that). Perhaps we have a Scrabble champ on our hands.

You can go to the Scrabble website for lots of interesting information. They have tips for playing the game, as well as a dictionary and the Scrabble word builder, which allows you to type in the letters you have and it will spit out all of the possible combinations. I don't recommend using that when you're actually playing a game (that would be cheating!), but it's great to go back afterwards and learn about new words.