Family Activity Ideas for this Week: March 15
Our friend, Spencer Rubin, Head Coach/President of Play. Fit. Fun. shares these ideas to keep families active this week during COVID19 social distancing. Also, check out Nature Hike BINGO and Fun Games with Dice.
BEAN BAG BOCCE
Fun game! This can be 1v1 or in teams. Each person or team receives 4-5 of the same colored bean bags. Team colors can be: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Black, Purple. We place a cone (or chair, or any target) at the end of the playing area as the target (like the jack ball in regular bocce). 1 player at a time throws their bean bag towards the target. At the end of each round, the team with a bean bag the closest to the target wins a point. If you don’t have bean bags, you can use any object that does not roll. Stuff socks with stuff! We have seen bean bags at Target, Fred Meyer and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
HEX NUT CHALLENGE
Now this is old school. Wooden dowels, and 6-sided hexagonal nuts. The players are broken up into teams…or this can be 1v1. Each team receives a dowel and 10 nuts at one end of the playing area. At the start, or whistle, 1 player from each team runs down, picks up the dowel, threads it through a nut and stood it up on end (the nuts begin by laying flat). They then run back and the next player has a turn. 1st team to get all 10 nuts standing on end wins the relay. Next round, they have to do the same thing, but the hex nuts had to be lined up, touching each other in a perfect line. In game 3, the players run down, stand one nut up…with the 2nd player running down and placing nut #2 on top of nut 1. Keep going until all 5 pairs were in 2-nut stacks. A lot of running, cardio, precision, hand eye coordination and communication. You can find dowels and all sizes of hex nuts at your locally owned ACE HARDWARE store!
DICE GAMES
–BEAT THAT
You can play with 2 dice for an easier version, or up to 5 for older or more advanced children. Each player rolls their dice, then arranges their numbers into whichever place values would produce the highest possible score – for example: Rolling a 1, 4 and 5 would give you the highest number of 541 and rolling 2 and 3 and 2 would give you 322. This simple game is a fun way to work on understanding place value, and might appeal to children with a competitive side. Another version of Beat that is simply have the kids place their dice in numerical order, and the player who does this 1st gets a point.
–WAR
Divide the dice so that each player has an even amount of dice. Players roll one die at a time, and the person who rolls the higher # gets to keep his/her die as well as his/her competitor’s. The game keeps going until one player captures all the dice, or if timed…the player who has the most dice wins at the end of the session. If both players rolled the same #, it’s “War” and both dice a placed to the side. They then each roll 2 more dice and the winner with the higher # gets to keep all 4 dice. You will need a lot of dice for this. If you don’t have dice, you can find some nearby at Piccolo Mondo Toys. We at Play.Fit.Fun LOVE supporting local businesses!
FLICK 5
Each player or team receives 2 pizza pans (or anything like that) and 5 ping pong balls. 1 player at a time has to run up to pizza pan 1 (5-10 feet from the start) and flick their 5 ping pong balls onto the 2nd pizza pan one at a time. This is done typically with one’s index finger. Keep repeating this until all 5 make it onto pan #2, without rolling off. A lot of running, crouching down, standing back up, use of precision and fun. Game 2 has them using their weaker hand to challenge them differently.
CHOPSTICK GRAB
Players work individually to move as many small pom pom balls (or any object) from a central bowl (or ring) into their own plastic cups (or any container), using only a pair of chopsticks. If you don’t have chopsticks, wooden dowels work too. If anyone cannot use the sticks with one hand, they can simply use 2 hands. The player with the most pom poms in their cup wins the round. You can also play team versions where the 1st team to move all pom poms from their ring or bucket, into their cups wins. If you want more of a challenge, have players use their opposite/weaker hand. If you don’t have pom pom balls, you can use anything light. However, you can find pom poms are your local craft store, and once done with this game, you can always use them for another great craft!