BananagramsA table with mixed ages
Updated September 4, 2026 · 2 min read
Grandparents, teenagers and a seven-year-old can play together at the same table. The classic racing game is rated for ages 7 and up, accommodates 1 to 8 players, and lasts about 15 minutes.
The short version
- Deal 21 tiles each when 1 to 4 players sit down to race.
- Call Split to start the game and Peel when your tiles are all placed.
- Use Dump to return 1 difficult tile and take 3 fresh ones back.
- Try Appletters or Gurms if younger children prefer taking turns instead of racing.
The classic racing game has no turns and no scores. Players race independently to complete their own grids using face-down tiles drawn from the bunch. In a game with 3 players, each person begins by drawing 21 tiles. Someone calls Split, everyone flips their tiles simultaneously, and play begins without waiting.
When a player uses every tile in their hand, they call Peel, and each person at the table takes 1 additional tile from the bunch. A player who gets stuck with an inconvenient letter can call Dump, returning that 1 tile face down to take 3 fresh tiles in exchange. The game ends when the bunch holds fewer tiles than there are players and someone uses their remaining tiles and calls Bananas.
Other games on our shelf fit different mixed-age preferences. Appletters takes 1 to 4 players ages 5 and up, using turns to build one long word worm on the table. Word-a-Melon runs on memory for ages 6 and up and counts something at the end to find a winner, while Gurms uses tile-matching with no spelling at all.
The mistake to avoid
The mistake is to present house adjustments as standard rules. Giving a younger child a smaller opening hand, forbidding Dump, or building a shared grid are house rules you decided, not official rules printed in the box.
Questions that keep coming up
Can a seven-year-old join the standard racing game?
Yes. Bananagrams is rated for ages 7 and up.
What game works for players younger than seven?
Appletters is rated for ages 5 and up, while Gurms and Word-a-Melon are rated for ages 6 and up.
How many tiles do players start with at mixed tables?
In the standard game, 1 to 4 players draw 21 tiles each, 5 to 6 players draw 15 tiles each, and 7 to 8 players draw 11 tiles each.