Mancala Game

This is the easiest homemade game ever! This is a popular game in Africa and Southeast Asia. It's popularity is due mostly to the fact that it cost next to nothing to make.

What You Need: A egg carton, 48 tokens (seeds, pebbles, pennies, dimes, buttons, paper clips, beads, etc), two small cups

What To Do: Carefully cut the top off the egg carton, leaving just the bottom. Put 4 tokens in each of the egg carton cups, or "houses". Place the egg carton between the two players with a cup at either end. The six houses closest to you are your houses.

The object of the game is to empty your houses  before the other player. Players alternate turns. On their turn each player picks up all the pebbles from one cup on their side of the board and places them one by one in the cups around the board in a counter-clockwise direction (to the right on your side, then to the left on the opponents side), including his cup, but not in the opponent’s cup.

BONUS:  You can have kids decorate the egg carton and cups before playing. 

There are many different ways to play this game so look some up or make up your own!

Felt Roads

Here is a simple way to help give your little ones Matchbox' and Hot Wheels a place to drive - that's not the edge of furniture, your leg, or expensive plastic track sets.

These customizable felt roads are easy to make and inexpensive. They can be arranged and re-arranged over and over in any combination your child can imagine.


What You Need: Black Felt, Yellow/White felt, scissor, craft glue, cardboard

What To Do: Cut the black felt into strips wide enough to drive a toy car on. Cut the yellow felt into thin strips and then cut those into strips about an inch long. Glue the small yellow strips onto the black felt roads and Viola! You're done. Use the cardboard as backing to make them extra durable. 

Tips: Because you're making them you can cut out whatever kind of roads you want: soft curves, corners, Y-shaped merges, 4 laned highway,  S-shaped zigzags. 

Store your roads in an hard pencil case or an old wipe container. 

Use them with train tracks, lincoln logs, plastic trees etc.

Fun with Pen & Paper

You don't need a lot of fancy toys to have big fun. Here are three activities for you and your little ones and all you need is a crayon and a sheet of paper (or more for more fun!) These are also great if you have to take your kids to work and they need something to do!


Copy Cat - Give each person a sheet of paper and a crayon. The first person draws a shape. Everyone else then has to copy that shape on their own sheet. The next person adds to the drawing, everyone then copies that on their sheet. Continue until everyone has had a turn or keep going until everyone decides that the picture is complete. Notice how similar yet different everyone's picture is.

There once was a Girl... - Again give each person a sheet of paper and access to crayons. Everyone then has to draw the following sentence: There once was a girl, who lived in a house, under a tree, next to a river.  (You can say the whole sentence at once or one piece at a time). Again compare and contrast how different their girls, houses, trees, and rivers are.  You can try these other sentences:
There once was a boy wearing a hat who lived on a farm with lots of animals.
There once was a frog, who lived on a rock next to a lake with lots of birds.
There once was a puppy who was digging a hole next to some flowers in the backyard.
Or Make up your own!

Three Piece Suit - Give each person a piece of paper and a crayon. Fold the paper into three sections. On your piece of paper draw a head and shoulders in the top section making sure the shoulder lines go just slightly over the fold. Decorate it how ever you'd like 2 eyes, 1 eye, 6 eyes! no mouth, curly hair whatever you'd like. It could be a potato head, a lions head anything goes! When you're done fold your paper so that the next section shows but not the head. Switch with another person. Now everyone draws the torso of whatever character they'd like: it doesn't  have to be the same one you drew before, again anything goes. No arms, six arms, fur, a dress, a bow-tie. Again draw all the way to the hips making sure the lines go just slightly over the fold. Fold the page again and switch: now everyone draws legs and feet being as creative as they want.  When everyone is done unfold the pages and see what kind of Creations you've come up with!

Summer Fun!

Welcome Summer! Today is the first day of Summer and here are a few activities to welcome the sunshine and beat the heat!

Garden Hose Limbo: Create a straight stream by holding your thumb on the end of the garden hose, if you don't have a nozzle, and let kids limbo under it.

Sponge Race: Fill a kiddie pool (or other large bucket), set up small beach buckets  a few feet away. Using larger sponges have kids soak up water in the kiddie and race to fill up their beach bucket.

Water Balloon Race: Fill a beach bucket with water balloons and let kids race to see who can pop all their water balloons first. Add crazy rules like not being able to use your hands and watch kids stuff their shirts with balloons and roll on the floor!

Click here for more Summer Games

painting by: allisa rachelle

Shoebox Fishing Game

This is the companion game to the box top coin flip game. When made together you can store the pieces inside the box and have two games in one travel case.

What You Need:

Shoebox

Construction paper

Blue & Green Pipe cleaners, pom-poms, feathers

glue

scissors

small magnet

paper clips

tape

yarn

chopstick

What to Do: Line the shoebox with blue construction paper. Glue or tape pipe cleaners, pom-poms, and feathers to act as ocean features.

Cut fish shapes out of a different color construction paper. Attach a paperclip to each fish lining it in up with the fish's mouth.

Make the fishing rod by tying a piece of yarn to the end of a chopstick. tape a small magnet to the end of the yarn.

How to play: Place the fish into the shoebox. Use the rod to try and catch the fish. two players can take turns seeing who can get all their color fish out of the box first.

Homemade Miniature Golf

What You Need:

metal curtain rod - separated to make 2 clubs

newspaper

old socks

a high bounce ball/tennis ball/ or handball

a shoebox

What To Do:

Make the clubs by separating the curtain rod and covering the ends with newspaper. Pad it up good for safety and to give kids a large area to strike the ball with. Cover the newspaper with a pair of old socks - one on each end. This is also a good way to help distinguish clubs - your club has your socks on it.

Use the shoebox as the hole, but cutting an archway into one end, and you are ready to play.

Indoors you can use furniture, shoes, cups, broomsticks etc as obstacles. Outdoors grass and concrete can act as rough and fairway, trees, hula hoops, buckets, etc can be obstacles. Make your course as easy or as hard as you want. Just place the shoebox down, arrange obstacles and putt!

Virtual Vacation: Destination Australia - Games & Activities

Down, Down, Down!

What you Need: a tennis or hand ball - that's it!

What To Do:

Bounce the ball between players, when a player misses the ball the other player says "Down on one Knee" - the player who missed must then continue to play but know from a kneeling position. If that player misses again then they go down on two knees, then one elbow, two elbows and finally the chin when they can no longer throw and catch the ball. The winning player is the one last one left when all other players are out - if playing with more than two players.

What Time is it Mr. Wolf?

This game is very similar to Mother May I? with a twist. One player is the wolf the others stand at a starting line. Players then ask "What Time is it Mr. Wolf?" the wolf will respond with "It's -O'clock" then players then take as many steps as hours the wolf says ie 10 o'clock is 10 steps and 7 o'clock is 7 steps. When the Wolf chooses he can respond with "Dinner Time!" at which the players must reach the start line before getting caught. The caught player becomes The wolf. Or if a player reaches the wolf before "dinner time" they can become the Wolf.

An Afternoon of Summer Fun

With five items that you can find in the dollar store and a hot summer afternoon you can have a world of fun! What you need: A hula hoop, a bouncy ball, a laundry basket, a pack of water balloons, and two beach buckets. Aside from the obvious games, here are a few other games you can play to entertain your little ones!

1) Snowcone Relay: Place the bouncy ball on top of one bucket, set up obstacles -like going around trees, down the kiddie slide, over the laundry basket, hoping through the hula hoop- and have kids take turns going through obstacles and pass the ball from bucket to bucket without using hands.

2)Laundry Basket Ball: toss, bounce, or roll the ball into the laundry basket using the buckets, and the hula hoop as obstacles to make it more difficult. Example, place the basket on its side and place the hula hoop a few feet away with the buckets upside down to form two towers half way between the hoop and the basket. Have your child stand in the hoop and roll the ball between the buckets and into the basket.

3) Target Practice: Place the hula hoop on the ground with a bucket in the center making a target. Standing a few feet away, toss filled water balloons at the target.

4) Dodge Balloons: Place the buckets a few feet away from each other with the laundry basket in the middle and put a bunch of filled water balloons in the laundry basket. Stand next to a bucket, on "Go" race to the basket and grab a balloon, race back to your bucket and toss the balloons into the other bucket, try blocking the other persons balloons from getting into your bucket.

More Water Games to Welcome Summer.

(Photo by Tom Anthony)

Box Top Coin Flip Game

This is one craft that will be fun long after the glue dries!

What You Need: a shoebox top, felt, marker, glue, scissor, a coin or button

What to Do: Cut the felt to line the inside of the box top and glue it in place. Then cut shapes with other remnants of felt to create scoring sections. Use the marker to write values on the felt shapes. Glue them randomly on the felt inside the box top to create the game board. Let dry.

How to Play: take turns flipping the coin or button into the box top. Earn points by getting the coin to land on one of the scoring sections. After 5 rounds the player with the most points wins.

Pair with the Shoe Box Fishing Game for two games in one box!

5 Games to Play with an Alphabet Mat

An alphabet mat is a wonderful teaching and play tool. the vibrant colors and washable foam make it great for even the youngest of kids. There are several obvious ways to play, but here are 5 unconventional games to play:

1) Alpha-Hop Scotch: It's just as you would imagine. Make a hopscotch grid with a few letters from the mat. As you hop down have your child say the letter they land on. For kids learning to read, have them make each letter sounds. And older kids can say a word that begins with that letter. (Note: use consonant blends as the double rows: BL, WH, ST, FR, PL)

2) Alpha-Twister: Again it's very much like the what you would think... You can play this one is a variety of ways, again by letter, letter sound, beginning letter, even color, or use all 4. Just write out the letters, colors, and words on strips of paper and place them in a hat. (Or if you have Letter Flash Cards use them). In another pile write out Left Hand, Right hand, Left Foot, Right Foot. Pick one card from each pile. Examples: Left Hand A; Right Foot 'Ssss'; Left Foot Blue: Right hand on the first letter in the word Pear. Use what ever works for you and your kids.

3) Rhyming Word Families: This is more of using the mat as a teaching tool. Put together the root of a word family, ie: -AT. Then have your child find the letters that will make rhyming words. Help them to sound out each of the words. M-AT; B-AT, C-AT, P-AT, F-AT, H-AT, FL-AT, R-AT, S-AT....

4) Alpha-Boggle: Lay out the mat in a 4x4 square A,E,I,O, U, R,S,T,L,N,P,B,D,C,H,M using the letters and have your child search for words by connecting letters.

5) Letter Train: Have your child put a random selection of letters in a row, then help them identify each letter and the sound it makes. For older kids, have them make up a story using the letters, example, if the letters are O, C, D, E, W, F,A, S: You might say, One Cold Day, Edward Went For A Swim; or Octopus Carl Dove Every Week For An entire Summer...

Virtual Vacations: Destination Spain - Games

Tres Cosas (The three things)

How to Play: Stand with your child in the middle of the room or yard and choose three objects that you both can see. While you close your eyes and count to ten (in Spanish if you can), your child has to try and touch all three objects and get back to your side. When you get to ten, your child should hide and you open your eyes. Without moving look to see if you can find them, if not you close your eyes and begin counting again. Your child can then continue touch the objects and getting back to you. Continue this pattern of counting and hiding, until either the child is caught when you open your eyes or they get back to you before you finish counting. Then choose three more objects and switch.

Virtual Vacations

For awhile now, I've wanted to do a collection of posts dedicated to traveling without actually leaving home. The focus of these Virtual Vacations is to give you and your child a series of activities to do surrounding one central theme that could be focused into one day or over a weekend.


For each Virtual Vacation, you'll find recipes, crafts, fun facts, book suggestions, games and activities that will allow you and your child to be transported to another culture.

Virtual Vacation Destinations:
Spain
Australia

South Africa - Coming Really Soon!