I love word games. They’re great to play when you’re bored, need a break from work, or have an extra 5 minutes before bed!
I am a big fan of the NYT spelling bee. The Sunday New York Times publishes a new spelling bee game every week, but I prefer to do the free online version that is published daily. The game consists of a wheel with one letter in the center and six letters surrounding it. The goal of the game is to form words that are 5 letters or longer and that contain the letter in the middle. You have 24 hours to find as many words as you can before the letters disappear!
Scrabble Sprint is also a great choice. In the game, there are 64 scrabble tiles that show up 7 at a time. You must form words that use 2 or more tiles. There is also a 60-second timer that counts down as you form the words, but each time you make a word more time is added. The goal of the game is to use all 64 letters without time running out. Your score at the end is a reflection of the points you earned from making words with different letter values.
There are also numerous word game iPhone apps, but my favorites are Scrabble Go and Word Brain. Scrabble Go allows you to play classic games of scrabble against friends or the computer. You can pick your difficulty and play multiple games at once. Word brain has many different levels that get progressively harder and more complex. Essentially, you find words by connecting letters that are laid out in a square or rectangle shape.
I hope you try out some of these free and fun games!