Wurdella field guide
Run an Anagram Relay with Paper Letter Tiles
Put a handful of paper letters on the table and you can run a word activity without making the fastest person responsible for every answer. This relay passes the job around. One player builds, another checks and another explains a word before the next rack arrives.
Prepare two racks and a checking sheet
Cut out one tile for each letter of LEAST and one for each letter of STOP. Keep the two racks in separate envelopes so no spare letter slips into a round. You also need paper for answers and a checking sheet prepared with the dictionary or tool you intend to use. For a first session, two racks are enough to learn the procedure without turning preparation into an afternoon project.
Wurdella's current collection includes STALE and STEAL from LEAST, and STOP and SPOT from STOP. These are examples, not a promise that this short list covers every dictionary's answers. Decide whether your group is using Wurdella's collection, a classroom word list or another named reference. Check the racks in that source before the players arrive.
Run the first pass without a clock
Give the first player the tiles and ask them to arrange a word using every tile once. The next player checks the arrangement against the reference and records it. A third player says what the word means or offers a sentence using it. Then rotate the jobs so the same person does not keep control of the letters.
Make the first rack an unscored demonstration. Show that STEAL cannot be made if an E tile has been lost, even though everyone remembers the spelling. Count the physical tiles whenever there is a dispute. That small habit makes duplicate-letter racks easier to introduce later.
The checker should have permission to ask for a second look without being treated as an opponent. If the builder offers an unfamiliar accepted word, pause for its meaning. A relay that rewards unexplained strings of letters may be technically busy while doing very little vocabulary work.
Score the contribution you want to encourage
A cooperative option is one group point for a new accepted arrangement and one for a clear meaning or sentence. Keep those as house activity points, separate from Wurdella's in-game scoring. Repeating an arrangement already recorded does not earn another word point, but it can still be used for a spelling or meaning check.
If you want teams, give them equal racks and equal turns before comparing totals. Do not let one team use a broad dictionary while the other uses a short classroom list. Avoid a strict speed race in the first session: players need to understand the handoff, checking process and meaning task before a timer tells them to hurry.
Set the end condition before you start. You might finish after each player has built once with each rack, or after the group has recorded three accepted arrangements in total. A fixed number of turns can work better than an open-ended hunt when one rack has few familiar answers.
Change the challenge without breaking the relay
For a gentler round, provide one accepted word and ask players to rearrange it into another. For a harder round, introduce a repeated-letter rack, making a separate tile for every copy. Keep the word length fixed at first so players can focus on counting the extra copy without learning several new rules at once.
Finish by asking each participant to choose one word from the sheet and explain what changed between its arrangement and another answer. You now have a small record of spellings, meanings and contributions. Keep the checking sheet for a later session, when the same procedure can run with fresh racks instead of a fresh explanation of the rules.