Any Scrabble whizzes out there?

The girls and I were playing Scrabble and had a nearly perfect game!! Well, nearly perfect according to our rules. There was only 1 tile left at the end of the game!

We play a heavily modified version of the game that we like to call Kid Scrabble. Here are the rules:

1. You can play your word any place on the board where there’s room and it doesn’t conflict with other words (try to put it where you rack up the most triple word points, double letter points, etc.)

2. The kids help me count up their score each time (I figure it’s good math practice)

3. If a kid hooks her new word up with an existing word, there is an instant 10-point bonus

4. Phonetic spelling (if the kiddo comes up with it on her own and knows what the word is) is perfectly acceptable

5. Help is perfectly acceptable, when asked for. If a kiddo says “I think I can spell xyz, is that how I spell it?” or “I wish I had an xyzletter to spell xyzword,” you can help them get it right or trade them for the desired letter (hey I figure if they know what they need to spell a word they deserve to have it).

6. A small treat is doled out every 20 points

7. When everyone is out of words, the remaining few tiles are combined and you all try to put them somewhere on the board

8. Then the winner (the person with the most points) is congratulated and high-fived and everyone gets a treat

In this game, the only tile we had left was a “U” – does anyone see anywhere that it can go? It was driving Ro crazy that we couldn’t fit it in, and Ree said “Just put it on the blog, mama, someone will know.” Hee! The blank tile on the left of the board is a “T” and the one on the right is an “S”.

PS: “jin” for “chin,” and “mace” for “make,” are the kid spellings in this game.