Bananagrams is a word-making game, anagram game, and fun travel game that is perfect for pre-readers. A game to play at school or on family games night, it is quick, fun, and edutaining.

Bananagrams is a fast, fun word game made of letter tiles stored in a handy fabric banana-shaped pouch. No pencil, paper, or board is required. It can be played in as little as five to ten minutes, making it ideal as a time-filler.

“Playing spelling games such as Bananagrams helps young children to improve their spelling and expand vocabulary. It helps to boost confidence, increases word recognition, and allows children to be more comfortable with language. Bananagrams is edutainment at its finest,” explains Philip Galliford, spokesperson for Solarpop – distributor of the Bananagrams range of games.

How to Play

Each Bananagrams pouch contains 144 plastic letter tiles. If there are 2 to 4 players, each player takes 21 tiles from the bunch, if there are 5 to 6 players 15 tiles are taken, if there are 7 to 8 players, they each start with 11 tiles.

Once everyone has their tiles, the game begins. Each player creates their own crossword, with words that can be read from left to right horizontally, and from top to bottom vertically. Learning word recognition has never been this much fun!

The moment one player uses all their tiles, all the players take another tile from the bunch. The player to have used up all their tiles when all the tiles in the bunch have been taken shouts out “BANANAS”.

The other players then inspect the winning grid. If it contains a misspelt word, a proper noun, or other unacceptable words, the other players call out “ROTTEN BANANA!”. That player is then out of the game, with their letters returned to the bunch facedown. Play resumes for the other players. If the words are all correct, the player wins the hand and is declared the “TOP BANANA”.

There are various ways to play which are outlined in the instructions, they include Banana Smoothie and Banana Café. There is also Banana Solitaire for solo play.

Educational Ideas

Bananagrams are used in schools and playschools to introduce children to the alphabet, to teach them how to write their names and to recognise words.

Bananagrams is presented as a game, and it takes the pressure off perfect spelling. There is plenty room for error and thus a large space for learning in a way that is easy, playful, and enjoyable. Children learn through play and with Bananagrams, the learning is all part of the fun.

Below are a few ways for teachers and parents to incorporate Bananagrams into education:

• Use the tiles to spell your name
• Use the tiles to place letters of the alphabet in the right order
• Intersect words to help with word recognition
• Build words to help with early reading
• Learn the sounds of vowels and consonants
• Pick a letter and finding its match

Bananagrams School Club

Solarpop is launching the Bananagrams School Club shortly!

School learners can join the Bananagrams league to make learning fun and more interesting. They can also win goodies for both their school and for themselves.

Teachers and parents who would like to be included on the mailing list, please send a mail to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For Teaching and Fun Resources, go here: https://bananagrams.com/pages/educational-resources

Bananagrams are available at Takealot, Toy Kingdom, Hamleys, Toys R Us, and other fine stores. For more info go to: https://www.solarpop.co.za/bananagrams-Collection/Bananagrams.html