LYNN – From the back left corner of the Sewell-Anderson Elementary School, the laughter and loud voices billow out into the hallways, echoing through the recently vacated classrooms as teachers begin to pack up their belongings for the day.As the laughter grows louder, the occasional staff member pokes a head out of the door, or meanders in to Laurie Chruniak’s library to see what all of the commotion is about. After all, the laughing and joking usually reserved for the playground does seem a bit out of place coming from a room that normally hosts silent reading and diligent studying.But on Wednesday afternoons from 2:15-3:15, all library rules are tossed aside, and the 16 students in grades three, four and five willing to stay an hour later after a long day at school get to have a little bit of fun in Chruniak’s Word Wizard’s Club.The club is simple in nature: students gather for an hour to play word games such as Scrabble, Boggle, Smart Mouth and the daily Word Jumble found in the newspaper, building their vocabulary and improving reading skills in the process.Chruniak happily plays the games with them, and adds an educational aspect, introducing her own words, and requiring students learn the vocabulary word of the week before they are allowed to leave.The word of the day Wednesday was “eccentric,” which inspired such sentences as, “The Lego man was eccentric because he started to talk to me,” and “The eccentric old man said ‘Get off of my lawn!'””It is a six-week program where we play a variety of word games. After the six weeks we will open it up to some other students and, if we still have some spots left, these kids can come back and keep going,” said Chruniak. “This is something that is good for the kids. In order to boost knowledge of vocabulary and express ourselves better, we need to be around a lot of different words.”Chruniak says the kids play a different game every week, and pretty much “do whatever we feel like doing” for an hour, as long as they learn the vocabulary word of the day. While Scrabble and Boggle are in the regular rotation, Chruniak says nothing can compare to Smart Mouth in its popularity among the students.”We used to let the kids just pick whichever game they wanted to play, but I found that they were always fighting over Smart Mouth, so I had to go out and buy a few more,” she said. “I also started them out with the Scrabble Junior, and I think they got insulted. So they play the regular Scrabble now and they are pretty good, too.”The concept of Smart Mouth is simple. Two letters come up, and the student has to choose a word that begins with the green letter and ends with the orange letter.For example, if the green letter is L and the orange letter is R, an acceptable answer would be “letter.”Playing word games like this, especially with the help of a librarian who can introduce the students to newer words like “oasis” or microscopic” that they may not hear in a regular classroom, affords students an opportunity to expand their vocabulary and improve reading and MCAS skills in the process.The students love the program because they get to play games in school, and they don’t have to follow normal library rules.”I like this club because it is fun, and even though you are in a library, no one will say ‘shhhh,’ ” said fifth grader Stacy Parker.Chruniak added that many students are getting to do something unique by playing board games, and can even teach each other while they play.”This program is good also because I don’t think kids play very many board games at home any more,” said Chruniak. “They have a great time here doing it and it is a good way to build their vocabulary in the process. Plus I love playing word games myself, so I am happy to get them excited about it.”