“Words within a word.” This was the name given to a game that I loved to play when I was much younger. Little did I know that it was actually called, Kangaroo/Marsupial words. Not only was it free and fun, it was also beneficial to me. It helped increase my vocabulary knowledge from a very young age and got me into the habit of using the dictionary, just in case the person I was playing against tried to use some unknown words to score a few extra points.

When I first played the game, all I needed was a piece of paper and pencil. As my skill grew, even those tools were no longer necessary. All I needed was my mind and at this point, the added benefits were that the game assisted me to multi task, reinforce self-worth, strengthen my social interaction and build mental concentration.

So how does one play this game? Like the name suggests, the game is pretty straightforward and easy. You choose a word, the longer the word, the better. This helps in forming even more shorter words. The words being formed must make sense and to make it more interesting, you can decide if words containing one or two letters are allowed. The person that forms the most number of shorter words, wins.

For example, I choose the word, ‘’inquisitive’’. From this word, I can form many other words such as, ‘’sit’’, ‘’quit’’, ‘’sin’’, ‘’tin’’, etc. And if you had noticed by now, using the words ‘’sin’’ and ‘’tin’’, I can further modify the game to include rhyming words, as well as sound manipulation.