Scrabble Dash!

Today I took a few photos of my Dash girls (a couple of boys come to play occasionally, but mostly it's these girls :)). They are hooked on Scrabble Dash! This game is played with three decks of cards. Dark green cards are consonants, light green cards are vowels, and red cards are instructional. Players hold seven cards at a time, just like regular Scrabble, and are initially dealt five consonants and two vowels. When a word is successfully played, players select new cards equal to the number of letters in the word played – either consonants, vowels, or a mix.

Dash Girls!

To begin, the first player flips a red card over and everyone scrambles to put down an English word. Red cards contain instructions such as “Verb,” “Four Letter Word,” “Three Letter Word,” “Has a ____,” and “Starts with ____.” So, if a red card that says “Has a ____” is turned over, the player who turned the card over must name a letter. Then the first person to place a correctly spelled English word containing that letter on the table wins the hand. The first player to collect five red cards wins the game.

Players often collaborate.

It can get pretty nuts. At one point, players were frantically putting down words before they had named a letter, or as they were naming a letter. This was proving a bit unfair to the other players, so I instituted a new rule. I told them that instead of saying the letter out loud, they now had to sign the letter. I downloaded a chart showing the ASL alphabet and they're practicing hard! I even taught them a few simple ASL phrases: “My name is...” and “Pleased to meet you.” They love it! Since I have no idea whether ASL and SASL are at all similar, this is probably completely useless knowledge, but they'll probably be able to sign more intelligible things than that bogus sign language interpreter at Mandela's memorial! Plus, we're having fun. :)

Having fun (and signing)!

PS I decided to look it up, and the ASL and SASL alphabets are the same...not sure about other signs, though.

- Elizabeth