One of the things I liked about Word Bandit from Drumond Park is that it is actually four games in one. It’s a game for those aged 8 and over and you play in two teams. The teams can have any number so it’s pretty flexible and you can even up the teams in terms of age and ability to make things more exciting.
Basically Word Bandit is a word-spotting board game that comes with an exciting wheel-spinning letter machine. Inside the box you’ll find a Word Bandit machine, playing board, two playing pieces, sand timer, sticker sheet and instructions. There’s minimal set up to do – just put a single sticker on your Word Bandit machine. The rules are easy, so you could be up and playing within about 5 minutes.
Each team picks a playing piece (red or blue) and puts it on the red starting space. As you move around the board, the space you land on dictates which of the four games your team will play. One of the team pulls the bandit’s handle to spin the wheels each turn, and the opposition counts the score.
- Red spaces use just one row of letters. You have to shout out as many words as you can that contain any two of the letters you have spun.
- Yellow means you play with two rows of letters. You must come up with as many words as possible in that category (each yellow circle on the board has a category printed on it) beginning with one of the letters on display on the bandit. You can use any letter as many times as you like, as long as the words are different.
- A green space means Famous People. The aim here is to find the initials of as many famous people as possible while the sand runs through the timer and the letters do not need to be touching in the grid.
- If you land on a purple space, you play Winding Words. Open the sliding cover on the machine to reveal four rows of letters, then pull the handle to spin the word wheels, which come up with a set of random letters. You race the timer to find as many words as possible that wind around the grid of letters. The letters of these words must follow on from each other, but can be in any direction.
It’s a fun game that should help with vocabulary building and general knowledge, but it’s a great one to play with a group of family or friends. I have a copy of the game to give away to readers, so enter via the Gleam widget below.
Word Bandit
Competition Terms and Conditions
1. No bulk, third-party or automated entries.
2. Entrants must be aged 18 years or older and resident in the UK.
3. The winners will be chosen by a random draw.
4. Promoter is responsible for fulfilling the prize and full contact details of the winner will be passed onto the promoter.
5. Competition closes on 31st October 2018.
At primary school H used to take a largish lunch box with room for a drink and a lunch. We only had a 5 minute walk to school and apart from his lunch bag, he just had a book bag to carry most days. The trouble is that secondary school is much further away; two buses and some walking. It’s not just the greater distance too, there are all the books that need to be carried back and forth each day. There’s been a delay in getting the Year 7s their lockers, so it’s even worse at the moment. So carrying a separate lunch bag wasn’t really going to work for us, so I’ve had to rethink how I’m doing his packed lunches.
We’ve been using the Bacofoil® All Purpose Zipper® Bags to pack the lunches. It means I can keep his food fresh and tasty. I can get a range of foods inside as they are very adaptable. It’s easy to fill as the bags have a handy stand alone base.
Once I’ve packed the lunch I can zip it up easily and safely. They are tear proof and water resistant and they don’t take up much room in his school bag either. We just put them in a separate pocket, so he doesn’t squash it with his books. Obviously, H has a nice new school bag, so I’m glad to be using a product that has a zip tight seal so there’s no leaks or messes. It’s really easy to open too and H can get this food out at lunch times without any problems. I also like that I can use Bacofoil® All Purpose Zipper® Bags for other things. I find them great to keep ham or cheese fresh and separate from other foods in my fridge. I can use them to store foods in the freezer too, which is great when I am doing some batch cooking.
I didn’t post last week because I was so busy last weekend with my family. My sister was down from Scotland with her husband and children, so there was a lot of getting together and doing family things. In the run up to that weekend I was busy working on H’s room. It’s now mostly finished and it’s just a case of bringing everything back into the room, but that is a task and a half as I’m hoping to clear things out too.
H’s enthusiasm for drawing is great to see and now he’s getting some dedicated art time in the school week too. It seems daft to me that this time is provided at secondary, but there wasn’t a lot of time for art at primary for some (probably SATs related) reason.