ABeeC Match Game and WordWall Challenge Blends & Digraphs Review

Boost early literacy skills in a fun way with educational games from Mind Sparks.

Even though ABeeC Match Game uses cards with words on them, you really don’t have to know how to spell in order to play. Instead, this is a letter-matching game that does help reinforce spelling and reading skills. To start the game, you lay out three of the double-sided word cards. The first player picks six dice and places them inside the bumblebee shaker cup. Roll out the dice and see if you rolled any letters that match those in the words on the cards. If you’ve got matches, place those dice on the matching letters on the cards. When you’ve matched all the letters you can, it’s the next player’s turn to grab six dice, roll, and match. If at any point, a player completes the spelling of a word, they get to collect that card. Each time a card is completed, a new card is placed in play, and the dice on the card are moved back to the dice pile. The first player to win five cards wins the whole game. The instructions also offer two alternate ways to play: a Long game and a Speed game.

In WordWall Challenge Blends & Digraphs, players create words to build a wall. There are four levels of cards, and you’ll choose which level of difficulty to play and then separate those cards into Blends (beginnings) and Ends. The dealer shuffles them, deals each player three beginning cards and three end cards face down, and then flips over either a beginning or end card from the pile. The player to the dealer’s left goes first by playing cards from their hand to complete as many words as they can. If you can’t create a full word from your hand or complete a word in the wall, you can lay a beginning or end card of your choice. At the end of your turn, draw as many cards as you played so that you always have six cards in your hand. Write down all the words you completed during your turn on the score sheet to earn a point for each word. At the end of the game, the player with the most words wins.