“Life is more fun if you play games.”
― Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald 
 Heidi Kay over at PediaStaff asked me to review a couple of games by Blue Orange Games.  Of course, I said yes—if you look at my therapy room, it looks like the game aisle in a toy store.  I love games, and my kids do too!  Even with the current iPad craze, most of my students will choose a game in a box to play when the time is right.
The game we played this week was entitled Speedeebee!  The ages suggested were 8 to adult, with 2-6 players in 20 minutes.  I played it with five EC 4th graders, adapting it a bit, as I do most of my games.

Here are the company-supplied directions:

 
For my students, this game is little fast paced; however, the directions were easy to change to make less competitive, and to allow for simpler tasks.  I became the card reader, and the kids wrote the words on the SmartBoard after I read a question.  I was really amazed at how they started off tentative, and then became risk-takers with answers such as ‘celery’, ‘wrestling’, ‘Asia’, and ‘Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’ (most spelled correctly and thought of without adult cues!)  I embellished the game a bit with iPad dice which were the same as the dice supplied by the game—different colors, but this was explained to the children who had no difficulty switching.  Ipad dice don’t roll off the table 🙂
Some examples of tasks included: 
—Name something associated with winter, starting with one of these letters.
—Name a word containing the blue letter but NOT containing the other 3.
—Find a word containing these 2 letters (throw the green and red dice).
—Name something you can eat starting with one of these letters.
With the adapted directions, I simply had the kids take turns coming up with words, rather than requiring a competition (some of us have difficulty losing).  This worked out fine, and they really loved this new game.  After answering a question, each child kept the card–no one lost.  I feel this game was great on many levels—

• Following complex directions
• Categorization,
• Spelling,
• Vocabulary.

It’s a keeper, and will hold a prominent spot on my game shelf for the older kids!