Orchard Toys Magic Spelling Review

Reviewed by Deborah Banasko

Like a large proportion of the country right now I find myself in the role of home school teacher and children’s entertainer. Whilst this bonus time with my children is lovely, some days can be a challenge to say the least as I attempt to break the monotony of school work, and the same home and garden toys. My google history is full of craft ideas and baking, and I have had to ban myself from ordering anything else for the kids online unless it has been recommended to me.   So when I had the opportunity to review Magic Spelling by Orchard Games I knew this would be perfect for my 5 year old son.

My children are aged 8, 5 and 1 so over the years we have collected a fair number of orchard games due to their reliable quality, fun and the educational spin. The Magic Spelling game did not disappoint. The game is for 2-4 players and is aimed at children aged between 5 and 7 due to the level of words being spelled, but my oldest child still enjoyed it as it is a game of speed as well as skill. The game is quite complicated to explain but in reality is very simple once you get going.

Each player has a spell book with 5 ingredients to collect. In order to win one of the ingredients cards you each have a turn at choosing a word card, then spelling that word using the letter tiles before the timer runs out. There are a few “catches”. The letter tiles are upside down, but the magic wand enables you to search for the hidden letters. Plus the word cards are simply pictures so you have to work out the correct spelling yourself, find the letters in the correct order and shout “abracadabra”. You can rub the black stripe on the word card to reveal the correct spelling at the end of your turn. Once you have collected all of your disgusting ingredients (slimy ogre snot was a particular favourite) you must spin the spinner; if you land on the cross bones you loose an ingredient, if you land on abracadabra you cast your magic spell from the spell book card and are the winner.

With the three of us playing it probably took around 15 minutes.  I loved the magic, spells and wizard aspect of the game (my daughter is reading Harry Potter so this is very topical in our house). The magic wand was a cool gimmick, and the silly spells at the end were great fun for the kids. Even though I could spell the words, sometimes you just cannot find the letter so there was a lot of panic and screaming as the timer ran out.

Whilst the spinner did feel a little pointless at first, it meant that the best player didn’t always win and it almost became a game of chance which does mean fewer arguments when you have more than one child playing. It adds another dimension to the game which I liked, so don’t let the slightly complex instructions put you off.

There are two levels of difficulty in terms of the words you have to spell. In fact once my 5 year old had mastered the easier words, we moved him onto the more difficult ones with two turns of the sand timer so that he had that extra time to give him a fair chance. The 8 year old found this less fair and commented that the timer was not long enough and made her panic, but the point of the game is that you have to spell the word quickly. If you decide to mix the easier and more challenging word cards together there’s also a luck element if you manage to get one of the shorter words, so we actually added our own rule that you could attempt a second word within the time to win double the ingredients.

The children did find that rubbing the cards to reveal the words was tricky so I had to help with that; not a huge issue and I guess making it too easy would spoil the game if your kids like to cheat a bit. 

I did feel that simply collecting your ingredient once you spelled your word seemed a little easy for the 8 year old, so we decided that turning them over and choosing at random (hoping that you would choose one of your own cards) made things more exciting and extended the game. It’s just an option you may want to try if you are involving older children, but I must stress that for my 5 year old the normal game format was perfect (and he is the intended target age).

In terms of the educational aspect, my son has learned to spell new words confidentally with this game. It would be very simple to add to this game by creating your own new word cards (minus the magic spelling rub and reveal of course), which is useful when learning new spellings at all ages and levels. It would perhaps have been useful if a number of cards were left blank to add your own wipeable pictures.

The game on its own is great fun and perfect for the intended age range. However if you use your imagination it has so many options to extend the amount of “play time” that you can get from it, to keep the learning going. It is a game that can entertain for a while and become your weekly spelling practice. We all really loved this and I can see it becoming a favourite of mine especially.  I would award this game 4.5 stars; it is a good quality, imaginative game and will be a useful tool to master spellings.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

RRP £12.95

This product is available to purchase from Orchard Toys here.