August 3, 2006 Sheri

Shake it up, spell it out

Rattled Rattled is a new game from Educational Insights, the same company responsible for Blokus, a perennial bestseller. Rattled is a word game that offers a creative twist on a familiar theme. Shake the wand, and a random set of 8 scrambled letters appears. Then, two players (or teams) compete to find the longest word that can be made using those letters. The first player to shout out a word starts a timer, giving the other players 30 seconds to find an even longer word. Longest word wins. The wand has a built-in sliding scorekeeper, so aside from the timer, everything you need to play is encased in the wand. Cleanup is a dream. It’s appropriate for 1st graders and up, though it would certainly continue to be fun for much older kids. It’s very fast-paced, and kids will like the novelty of shaking the wand to reveal the letter choices.