Ages 7 and up

Players 1 or more

Playing Time less than 30 minutes

Maya and Miguel are siblings who star in their own show on PBS. Think Dora but geared to 5-9 year olds. Like Dora, Maya and Miquel intermingle English and Spanish words. It's 'edutainment' programming. The underlying message of Maya and Miguel is to do good for your family and community. It's fun to watch, and I'm sure as soon as we are out of the Dora stage, we will be tuning into Maya and Miguel quite often.

Maya and Miguel Word Scramble is by Briarpatch games and challenges players to spell the words that appear on playing cards. The game board consists of 48 sliding, interlocking tiles with letters on them. There are 26 double-sided image cards that include both the English and Spanish spelling of each object. Players choose a word to try to spell. They can either spell the word in Spanish or English. Then they have two minutes to move tile pieces around to form the word. If they have time left, then they can choose another word to try to spell. Players earn points for each letter in the word. They can also earn bonus points for words that are 5 letters or more.

Play ends when all players have had three turns at finding words. The player with the most points wins the game.

The advance rules include an option that players just view the image on the cards and not the side with the words. They then can spell words that relate to the picture. For example, if there was a picture of a pig, then someone would earn points for spelling 'oink.'

Maya and Miguel Word Scramble can be a fun spelling exercise. As a game, it might move a little slow for some children since there is really nothing they can do on their turn. Some house rules might be implemented to shorten a player's turn or offer other players a chance to spell the rest of the word a player is working on when time runs out.

Making your own cards can help keep this game fresh and challenging. Maya and Miguel also could be a good solitaire game for kids on road trips.