How We Modify Boggle For Family Game Night
We love playing games as a family, and we make it part of our regular weekend routine. Some games, like the classic game of Boggle, work for everyone when we modify the rules a bit for each person depending on their skill level. Here’s how Boggle works for our whole family and can hopefully work for yours too!
Every Sunday night, the four of us gather at our kitchen table to play a game to close out the weekend. I’ve shared some tips previously that help make a family game night fun and successful for us. Lately, we have been coming back to the same game that’s a hit every time… the classic game of Boggle.
Our boys are five and seven. They both read and can spell, but Boggle would not work now for our family without a few modifications. We have adapted the rules of adult games before, like when we took this very adult game and created a few of our own options to make it family-friendly.
For Boggle, we didn’t modify the pieces of the game. We simply changed the scoring to make it fair for everyone.
How We Modify Rules To Play Boggle With Our Kids
The formal rules of Boggle give each player one point for every four-letter word that they find. In other words, a four-letter word is the “base level” word and larger words receive bonus points.
Words found with more than four letters are each worth extra points, per letter over four letters. For example, a four-letter word is worth one point. A five-letter word is worth two points. And a six-letter word is worth three points. And so on.
To make Boggle fun for everyone, we let each player find words of different lengths based on their age. J, our 5-year-old, gets credit for any word with at least two letters. Then he gets an extra point for every additional letter after two letters.
Our 7-year-old is allowed to play three-letter words, each of which are worth one point. Any word above three letters receives an extra point for each letter over three letters.
Adults follow the formal rules of the game. As the regular rules describe, any overlapping words between players negate each other and all players who found that word receive zero points for the word.
Less Is Definitely More
Playing games together is such a simple, low waste, and low-key way to spend quality time together. As a bonus, we can often find classic games like Boggle, Yahtzee or Labyrinth at thrift shops in great condition.
Games like Boggle even challenge reading and spelling skills. Yahtzee bolsters math and strategy skills. There are so many great reasons to play games together as a family, and when you find the right game, it is so much fun.
What games do you play with your family?
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