Capture Blends

Words with beginning blends

 Capture is a fun game that the children really enjoy playing because it has the element of taking cards (capturing) from other players. They especially love capturing cards from Grandma.

There are two decks needed for the game. Deck 1 is the Blend Cards. Each card has a possible beginning blend (such as: st, br, str, ch, etc.). Deck 2 has word endings (like: and, art, ell, ush, etc.).

  Each deck is shuffled.

 The ending cards are divided into five piles (approximately even) and placed in the center of play. These are placed face-up

 The blend cards are placed face-down in a draw pile.

 In turn, a player draws a blend card.

 He then tries it with each of the ending cards... No word here!


No word here either...

 ...until he finds an ending that makes a word with his blend. Here is a word...SWELL!

 He picks up the ending card and confirms with the other player(s) that it is indeed a word.

 He then places the blend card UNDER the ending card and keeps them visible in front of him on the table.

 If the player is unable to find an acceptable word in the five ending piles. He then looks to the ending piles his opponent has accumulated. If he finds an ending that works here, he collects the entire pile and moves it to his side of the board.

 Here Grandma is "capturing" a pile from Douglas.

 Douglas is searching Grandma's piles to find a match to his blend. When he does not find one he can then look to his own piles. If he finds an ending that works, he can add his blend under that pile.

 If he finds no endings that work with his blend, his blend card is put on the bottom of the blend draw pile and his turn would end without a capture.

 A dictionary is kept handy to check any questionable words.

 Here is the end of the game. All the blend cards have be used. Both players have several captured ending piles in front of them.

Who wins???  Well, if you ask Grandma, I will always believe that I did as the children have played a game which drilled their skills and had some fun with me as well.  Now the children always want to know who the REAL winner is... so we usually count how many claimed piles we have at the end of the game. However, in order to possibly have TWO winners, I also will have the children stack all the cards they have in front of them into one stack and see which stack is higher. Do whatever works for your family.

HERE IS A VARIATION using the same cards.

Just reverse the piles...

 Place the blends in the piles in the middle and use the ending cards as a draw pile.