Backyard Summer Camp: Game Week

I hope you have been having as much fun with this Backyard Summer Camp series as we are. My kids get pretty excited about picking a new envelope each week, and they are even coming up with their own ideas to add to our list. I love it! Of course, the list is just a starting point. It gets us going in the morning and then we go off on tangents. And the best part is: minimal whining. Yes!

Now, get ready for Game Time!

By the way, in case you've missed them, be sure to check out Wacky Sports Week, Under the Sea Week, Outer Space Week, In Our Neighborhood Week, Dinosaur Week, and Messy Stuff Week too. Have fun!

Games Week

Active Play

• ·      Life-Sized Angry Birds (Materials: cardboard boxes, Angry Birds coloring pages, water balloons, etc. Instructions: Select images of the pigs from the Angry Birds coloring pages and secure to a few boxes. Stack the boxes to look like the game and launch filled water balloons as the birds. Take turns trying to knock down all of the “pigs.”)
• ·      Play Twister outside
• ·      Play tag or freeze tag
• ·      FrisbeeTic Tac Toe (Materials: 9 frisbees or paper plates in 2 different colors; square blanket or tablecloth; duct tape to make the Tic Tac Toe grid on the blanket. Instructions: players throw their Frisbee or plate and try to get three squares in a row.)
• ·      Hang a felt “target” outside; cover balls with adhesive Velcro (you'll want the stiff side of the Velcro; not the soft side) and have kids throw to try and hit the target
• ·      HopScotch on bubble wrap ...or in the driveway with sidewalk chalk...or on the floor with painter’s tape
• ·      Life-sized Candy Land: use masking tape or painter’s tape to secure a variety of colored construction paper on the floor to make the game board. Use the cards from Candy Land to move to a certain color (be sure to use colored paper that matches the colors in the game), or roll dice and move that number of spaces. You could make up silly rules to add more movement to the game. For example, when a player lands on red s/he jumps three times, when a player lands on blue s/he barks like a dog, when a player lands on orange s/he touches his/her toes, etc. ECO-NOTE: Save the paper after your game! If you roll a piece of masking tape and place on the back of the paper to secure it to the ground, you can save it. The tape pulls off easily; just stack the paper and return to your craft supplies for future use. 

Life-sized Candy Land!

Quiet Play

• ·      Play board games
• ·      Set up a domino run
• ·      Make your own board game (large piece of paper or inside of a cereal box, paint, stickers, etc. - let the kids make up the object of the game and the rules!) 
•      Play online games, such as the games for kids in grades K-8 at funbrain.com
• ·      Make a game board out of LEGO bricks
• ·      Read books about games
• ·      Write a story together about playing your favorite game. Let kids illustrate.

Super-fun Domino Run

Field Trips

• ·      Go bowling (school-age children bowl one free game per day this summer at AMF lanes; check out kidsbowlfree.com)
• ·      Visit a local children's museum to play games (Rochester Area: check out the new Game Time exhibit at StrongNational Museum of Play)
• ·      Play video games at an arcade such as Chuck E. Cheese (Rochester Area: The Clubhouse in Henrietta, NY and Adventure Landing in Greece, NY are also kid-friendly)
• ·      Go to the library for books about games: Games: Traditions Around the World by Godfrey Hall, Games: From Dice to Gaming by Liz Miles, The Games Book by Huw Davies, Play These Games by Heater Swain, The Big Book of Games by Dorothy Stott, and Games Galore by Shari Ann Pence.

Giant-sized fun at the new
Game Time exhibit at
Strong National Museum of Play

Ginormous Battleship at
Strong National Museum of Play

Playing dominoes on
a larger-than-life domino

Giant light-up Connect Four

   

    We hope you enjoy your Game Week, and as always, thanks for reading.

Time for a Scavenger Hunt

There are days when I feel like the worst mom in the world (or perhaps just the laziest), and then there are days when I feel like a Mom Genius. This was one of the genius days. It's getting toward the end of summer, and most of my good ideas had already been used up, until I started thinking about birthday parties. One of the things my kids love to do at parties is have a scavenger hunt.

Step One
I grabbed two brown paper bags and decorated them with some stickers, and each of my boys' names. This took about 45 seconds. If you don't have brown paper bags, you could use:

• pails from the sandbox
• used gift bags
• plastic grocery bags
• shoeboxes
• trick-or-treat buckets
• plastic food storage container
• anything!

If you want to prolong the time this activity takes, give the kids the bags/boxes/containers and some sheets of stickers and have them do the decorating.

Step Two
Make a list for the scavenger hunt. Will your hunt be indoors or out? This will help shape your list. Indoor items could include:

• Something you use to eat your food
• A shoe
• A toy block
• A piece of paper
• A magnet
• Something hard
• Something soft
• Something with wheels
• Something round
• 2 things that are red
• Something that moves
• Something you like

Outdoor items could include:

• Something fuzzy
• A seed or nut
• Something straight
• Something round
• Something smooth
• Something rough
• 2 types of leaves
• Something that makes noise
• A rock
• A pinecone
• Something green
• Something that you like

Step Three
Explain that we are going on a scavenger hunt to find the items on our list. When we find something that is on the list, we will put it inside our bag/box/container. Then we will keep going until we have everything on our list.

We used an outdoor list, so we headed to a playground. My older son rode his bike while my younger son got a ride in his covered wagon. We brought the list and our bags, and we got down to business as soon as we reached the playground.

Something rough: wood chips!

Something round: the bicycle wheel! (not quite something that would fit in the bag, but they were so excited, I didn't want to ruin their fun)

They had a great time finding everything on their list, and then we played at the playground for a while. Once all the objects are found, there are a endless possibilities for the activities the kids could do with them.

One option is to do a rubbing of the objects, if possible. To do this, place the object under a piece of light-colored paper. Next, remove the wrapper from a dark crayon - dark blue, purple, black, or brown work best - and use the long side to rub the paper (where the object is underneath). The texture of the object will be transferred to the paper. This works best with relatively flat objects, such as leaves, coins, hair combs, or small toy figures. Use different areas of the paper for each object until you have a collage of scavenger hunt items.

Another option is to take a digital photo of each object, print the photos, and help your child make a simple photo book or scrapbook with them. This would be great for an alphabet scavenger hunt (finding something that starts with each letter), a numbers scavenger hunt (find one leaf, two rocks, three sticks, etc.), or a colors scavenger hunt (find one thing that is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, and white). Then the photo book becomes your child's own learning tool.

You could also have your child pose for a photo with all of the found objects. Have them decorate a paper plate, then attach the photo to the center and hang it up as a "trophy" from the scavenger hunt.

I hope these ideas inspire you to have a scavenger hunt with your child, grandchild, niece, nephew, or the kids you babysit. They'll have a blast, and you won't hear "I'm bored." At least for ten minutes out of the day.

Be sure to Post A Comment and tell us about your scavenger hunt. As always, thanks for reading.