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Arrange, Connect, Spell: How to Play Words Family

Maddy Marcus / February 17, 2021
Arrange, Connect, Spell: How to Play Words Family

Whether you’re looking for fun and educational activities to play with your kids, or just trying to kill time on your own, playing word games can be a fun and engaging way to help strengthen spelling and reading skills. Taking time each day to play a crossword puzzle, even if just for a few minutes, stimulates your brain and gets it moving, which helps strengthen your core vocabulary skills. 

For some, the challenge of a crossword or word jumble is more than enough to stimulate intense thinking. Others may be searching for an even greater challenge. You’ll find a whole bunch of free spelling and word games right here on Coolmath Games. Each one with its unique mechanics and goals. 

Words Family combines the fun of word games with the added challenge of a puzzler. Letters are scrambled into different shaped blocks that fit perfectly together on the empty grid. The object of the game is two-fold: unscramble letters to spell the words correctly, and arrange the blocks in the grid so that there are no empty spaces. 

There are no timers, no point systems, or stars to earn. Simply play each level at your leisure, but know the more you play, the greater mental workout you’ll get!

words family play

Tips for Playing Words Family

In any given Words Family puzzle, there could be a few different ways to arrange the pieces on the grid, but only one solution to each level!

When starting out, you’ll find the puzzles are fairly simple to connect and complete. As you go through the game, words get longer and some puzzles get bigger so things can get a little complicated. 

Think first about the arrangement of the shapes and how they can link together to fit in the box. It may help to put the word construction aside and simply fill the grid. Seeing the shapes together can jump-start your brain into unscrambling the final words. Once you can pick out the correct spelling, rearrange the blocks accordingly. 

On the other hand, you can choose to start by ignoring the puzzle and go hunting for words in the mix. Glance around at the letters scattered on the board and see if any possible words jump out at you immediately before putting the pieces together. If you don’t make out any words, switch your focus to the puzzle. 

Vowels are also a key element to look out for when completing a puzzle. Every word contains at least one vowel (A, E, I, O, U or Y), so you should have one or more of these letters in each row. Keeping this in mind will come in handy when placing the blocks into the grid. 

In addition to looking out for vowels, you could also look for letter pairings like ‘TH,’ ‘SH,’ and ‘ED.’ These letters often appear at the beginning or end of a word. Using spelling cues like this come in handy in most word unscrambling games. 

A World of Word Games

Words Family is just one of the many fun and free word games you’ll find on Coolmath Games. If you’re enjoying this game, you may enjoy Words Party. This game uses similar mechanics to create a sentence by arranging blocks on a grid. 

Puzzle games not your speed? You can never go wrong with a classic word search! Choose from different difficulties and categories in our word search game then get to finding! 

Word Worm is another word game you can try. Keep spelling words as fast as you can to get the worm all the way to the bottom of the tower. This game improves both spelling and reaction time with the added thrill of being on a timer. 

Time to Play!

You’ve learned the basics of how to play Words Family, so now it’s time to put those skills to the test! Play a few rounds using the strategies you read here and see how far you can go. Remember: even just a few minutes of word games each day will give you a great mental workout while keeping you engaged.