How good are you at Scrabble? Can you polish off the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in an afternoon? If so, maybe KaBAM wouldn’t faze you. But if you relish a good challenge and want to test your spelling smarts with your kids, I invite you to get a copy of this word-building game and see just how vast your vocabulary is. My daughter and I have been playing KaBAM 
for the last few weeks and I must admit to being stumped on more than occasion. The concept is simple, but trying to win is anything but. Players draw cards, each containing one or more letters, and then must add a minimum of one letter to create a new word. Once you know a word, shout it out and collect both cards. Whoever accrues the most cards by the time you’ve gone through the entire deck wins! Sounds easier than it looks, I assure you. Assuming I have more than 30 years reading experience over my 7-year-old, I figured I could sit back and politely “let” her win a few rounds. But the truth of the matter is I was scratching my head over words I could make using odd letter combinations. Sure there are plenty of no-brainer answers when slamming down cards containing an A and PR (“pray,” for one, as in who knew I’d need to call upon a higher power to bring me luck during this game). But how about when you draw cards like TI and OU? The rules say you can’t change the order of a letter combination to come up with an answer. Let’s just say my daughter racked up quite a few points in this game. KaBAM is a great way to keep kids’ minds active during those lazy summer months when reading falls by the wayside. It’s one that we’ll definitely be taking with us on vacation. Now excuse me while I go catch up on my reading…the dictionary, that is.
In a Nutshell: Scrabble buffs meet their match with this engrossing word-building game that truly puts your working vocabulary to the test.
