Homemade Children's Games
TIPical Mary Ellen : Episode TIP-557 -- More Projects »
Family activities expert Dr. Bra Vada Garrett-Akinsanya offers fun and creative ideas for homemade games to entertain children.
- Let children make their own mancala game. Collect small pebbles or rocks to use as the game pieces and use an empty egg carton as the game board (figure A).
- Let children make their own beanbags. They will need some old fabric, dried beans and a needle and thread. Cut out two identical squares of fabric and sew three sides together and about half of the fourth side. Fill the bag with the dried beans and sew it shut (figure B).
Make a scoop to play catch with a ball. Cut off the bottom and lower side of an empty, cleaned-out bleach bottle that has a handle. Toss a tennis ball up in the air and catch it with the scoop (figure C).
Make a pizza game for the children with felt and a die. Cut out a brown circle of felt for the crust, a smaller red circle for the sauce and a still smaller circle of yellow felt for the cheese. Each player must roll a one to get their crust, a two to get their sauce and a three to get their cheese. Each player must continue rolling until they get the numbers in this order. Numbers four through six represent toppings. Use appropriate colors of felt to cut out pepperoni rounds, green peppers and olives. The first person to have a fully topped pizza wins the game (figure D).Save the lids from frozen orange-juice cylinders and use them to make a memory game. Place two identical stickers on two juice lids and repeat until there are 12 pairs of matching lids. Place them sticker-side down, shuffle them around and let children play by turning over two lids each turn until they find matching lids.Make a slit in the plastic top of a clean, empty coffee can. Let small children slip the juice lids into the coffee can.
Resources information about children's games
www.msoworld.com
This sebsite includes information and rules for mancala and similar games.
Also in this Episode
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