Sunday, February 14, 2010


SMMART GIVEAWAY: Bananagrams!!!
(Claimed-Giveaway over)
You'll "go ape" for BANANAGRAMS!

This fast-paced game requires no board, paper, pencil or timer...AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT YOUR TURN! Play on the go- the yellow banana shaped cloth pouch contains 144 ivory-like letter tiles. Players race to complete their own individual crossword-style puzzles, can rearrange already formed words and even "dump" hard to use letters for different ones. Cries of "Split", "Peel", and "Dump" can be heard as players focus on being the first to use up all their letter tiles. A victorious "Bananas!" declares a player has no remaining tiles. But you must be certain that your words are correctly spelled and acceptable, or you'll be declared the "Rotten Banana"!


Bananagrams is for 2-8 players (ages 7 to adult), and makes an excellent family game for children playing right along with their parents.

Fun and Educational!

Keep your eyes "peeled" for Appletters and PairsinPears games too.

BANANAGRAMS TM is generously giving away FIVE Banangram games!!!!

You can enter three times:

1) Visit the BANANAGRAMS site and comment (click on "SMMART Comments") on which method may be the most fun way to play Bananagrams with your "bunch"..."Best of", "Banana Smoothie", "Banana Cafe", "Banana Solitair", "Banana Challenge" (under instructions). Leave your name in the comment!

2) Comment "Follower" and become a SMMARTideas Follower or tell me if you already "follow" SMMARTideas. Leave your name in the comment!

3) Comment and tell me your methods of getting in READING TIME and LETTER PRACTICE with your child (shaving cream letters in the bathtub, hiding-letter-go-seek...). Leave your name in the comment!

The Winners comments will be posted on Thursday, Feb.25th. Winners must contact me at SMMARTideas@hotmail.com with their mailing information by midnight that night or a new winner will be chosen.

"The Anagram Game that will Make you go BANANAS!"

65 comments:

Melia said...

We LOVE Bananagrams at our house. We love how we can all play together, but we play at our own pace.

Jennifer Slaugh said...

We would love to play bananagrams BANANA SMOOTHIE I think would be the way to play for us!

Jennifer Slaugh said...

I am already a follower!!

Jennifer Slaugh said...

right now we are practicing the letters in our names so we just do a lot of repitition

tamikate said...

Since my family is so little and young I think we would start with a smoothie but work our way into more difficult methods of the game. :) What a GREAT thing to have and play with kids (and adults :))

Lesley Weis said...

We practice letters several different ways. I have an old game called Upwords and my kids love playing with the letters. My 2 year old started by pulling letters out and I would tell her what letter it was and a word that started with it (M is for Monkey). Now she can do that all herself and only asks if she gets stuck! My older kids use the letters to form words. We do the same with the magnetic letters on the fridge.

Jill said...

I think I would play the banana challenge since I have kids with such a broad range of ages.

mcmullins said...

I think Banana Solitair (so that I might win at Scrabble for once!) Thanks, Tracy McMullin

Jenifer said...

I have older kids so I like the banana challenge. But I do have one younger son in preschool so we are always trying to come up with new ideas to get him excited about reading.

Jenifer said...

I am not a follower yet I would like to become one, I think I might be blind I could not find the follower button. HELP!

Jenifer said...

My kids are older and I missed the boat with them I didn't do my job with them when they were little, I now have a four year old that we are trying very hard to be different with we make sure we read everyday.

smitty0719 said...

Saw this on TV today, excited to find them. Daughter struggles with her spelling words, what a great idea to play with the banana blocks and learn her spelling words while playing a game. Looking forward to trying them. Thank you

smitty0719 said...

Set up to follow this fun, awesome site!! Hope I did it right, if not have u in my favorites so i can check by daily!!! Thank you for your hard work!!!

Chelsee Joy said...

We would love to play the Banana Smoothie. What a cute idea :)
Chelsee B.

Chelsee Joy said...

"Follower"

Chelsee Joy said...

We love to find letters and words when we are driving :)
Chelsee B.

Unknown said...

What a cute blog, I just saw you on GTU. You have some fun ideas. We don't have the Bannagrams game, but, I would love to have it after seeing all the fun ideas you had with it.

I think the Banannacafe would be the funnest for our family. We had a range of kids of diffrent ages.

I saw a fun idea for little kids learning their letters, spray the letter in whipping cream on a plate and serve with berries or fruit or pancake, if could be their letter for the week [preschool]. Thought that was cute...

Thanks for your cute blog, will be checking it often.

Karen M.

jenniferhoiyin said...

we play this but call it speed scrabble and use thrifted scrabble letters since they seldom have a full sets there. took me a few months to get them all!

my little girl is only 6 months old, but i love an idea i saw of an abc book made from photos of things around the house that kids recognize and are familiar with.

Anonymous said...

We play, we love...
muitofrio1@gamil.com

Thank you...love your blog.
I'm Cecilia...

Ashleigh said...

I am a follower! Love your blog and all the fun ideas. fun stuff for all different ages

Anonymous said...

Sorry...my email is:

muitofrio1@gmail.com

Tawna said...

I think smoothie would work the best for our family. This would be great to have for my kids. Thanks. tawna21(@)hotmail(DOT)com

The Crabby Fam said...

My son just turned two in December and we have started focusing on learning letters. He loves to sing the ABCs and loves to point out letters when he sees them (esp. out shopping). To make letter recognition and writing letters fun we cover the counter in shaving cream to draw the letters. He loves it.
McKenna

Tawna said...

I would like to be a follower, could not find it on your site. Thanks. Tawna tawna21(@)Hotmail(DOT)com

Tawna said...

I have gotten a bunch of books to practice letter on at the dollar store that my kids love to do. Thanks, Tawna.

KS said...

"Follower"

I love checking and finding out what new ideas you have posted! I'm excited to try these new reading ones.

Thanks!
Kellie Stucki

KS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KS said...

One thing we are focusing on right now is printing letters correctly. I print different pages and choose what I'd like my son to practice writing. Sometimes we also use a mini whiteboard. For reading, he or I read a story to each other and today we had a letter F day. We tried to find as many things as we could that started with the letter F and put them in a bag. He loves to think of different words that go with our letters and often will think of words that don't go with an object we have, but his brain is thinking.

He will be entering kindergarten next year, so he should be well prepared.

Kellie Stucki

KS said...

I would like to play Banana Smoothie with my kids. I don't think the more hectic ones would be a good place to start.

Kellie Stucki

Brittany said...

I'm a follower!

Brittany said...

We do "letter practice", by breaking into teams. I hide the letters around the house in hard and easy places, so everyone has a chance to get letters. We have 3 minutes to gather as many letters as we can. Then we assemble. The kids will try and make as many words as possible with the letters they have. They then have to write the words on a piece of paper, and the team that comes up with the most words, wins. Usually the easier letters to find are "x", "y", etc, but sometimes I mix it up. We don't actually have the bananagrams, so we play with scrabble pieces. I'd love to win a game, that would be a lot of fun!

Jill said...

I don't really have a methond, but we love to read Junie B. books. I read a page and then she reads a page, she doesn't get as discouraged and the time flys!

Family Fun said...

I would love to do the Banana Challenge with my daughter. And my son would like to play the Banana Smoothie. Wow! The possibilities with this game are amazing. I would also like to do the word snake game that you featured on Good Things Utah. The ideas that you showed would be amazing for practicing spelling words and also for just spelling and reading words. Thanks for your awesome Ideas! I hope we win one! Thanks! Ginger rosesv@hotmail.com

Family Fun said...

I am a follower now!
Ginger

Family Fun said...

We have had fun practicing spelling by doing shaving cream in the bath, fingerpainting the words with pudding and making word finds with the words online.
Ginger

Jedda said...

This would be a well-loved game/toy at our house. We often use magnetic letters on the fridge right now. I've also made some out of cereal boxes to play with. It's so awesome to be able to "touch" the letters for kids.

Clements Family said...

I would say the banana smoothie for sure....the easier the better!!!!
My kids would love it!!!
PS...good job on GTU-we are going to be cooking on 3/2 so you will have to tune in:)

Clements Family said...

I follow

Anonymous said...

The banana cafe is a great idea, it is always hard to entertain the kids while waiting for the food to come.

Anonymous said...

Melanie Rogers

Anonymous said...

Melanie Rogers-I forgot to put my name on the first one, and that I am a follower on the next one, oops.

We have bath tubs letters and while the girls are bathing I ask them to find letters, say the sounds, and build words.

Taranani said...

I'll have to go with Banana Smoothie for our family... Since we have an 8 and 7 year old, as well as a 4 year old that's just learning!

Taranani said...

Am still a follower, and love you!

Taranani said...

My little one that just turned 4 is in a pre-pre school, where she is just learning about one letter each week. I like to write that letter on a paper several times that week and see if she can copy it. (She loves it!)

Unknown said...

I am a follower

Arianne Newton

Unknown said...

I think BANANA CHALLENGE sounds fun

arianne newton

Unknown said...

my daughter loves scribble and write and when she writes her letters she sounds them out.

arianne

Kanien said...

I like the Banana Challenge. I might actually win if my family played it because my husband knows every 2 letter word out there!

Alyssa Boone said...

Sounds neat!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Since we are still very young here, Banana Best Of would be our preference

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

And now I follow you via a Google reader

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Natalie: Reading is firmly entrenched in our night routine. We start it with my daughter reading to me and we end it after the bath and other things with me reading to her. And it'd better be two long books :)

Unknown said...

I would like to play with the bunch. We played this at my in laws and it was really fun. I love that it is fast paced.

Unknown said...

I follow you!

Unknown said...

We like to hide letters all over the room and he has to say them as he collects them.

Ticia said...

banana smoothie.
Ticia

Ticia said...

follower
Ticia

Ticia said...

We play games with our words. We'll play go fish or memory or bingo.

Angela said...

Banana Solitaire for me. I don't like competition with family members, and that is who is around me!

Angela said...

Follower

Angela said...

I use file folder games. THis is the way my mom taught me, so I am passing it on!

Brian & Kerrian said...

Banana Smoothie ~ Kerrian

Brian & Kerrian said...

We love to read ~ often I will read to the kids in the car while my husband drives, we also love afternoon storytime, sometimes we read to our stuffed animals and babies! We like to make letters out of spaghetti noodles, we have games with the bath letters, I also teach my kids to sign their abc's ~ having them trace the letters in the air or on my back then I have to guess it or I do it on their back and they have to guess it!!! I also love the cookie cutters that have all the abc's!!! thanks for the fun give away!!! Kerrian

Taste of Champaign said...

Banana Smoothie for us!

Taste of Champaign said...

I now follow! Thanks for introducing yourself. Another new fun blog for me to try and aspire to!!!

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