Bowling Pumpkins

We are in full holiday swing around here.  Seems like as the kids get older, the costumes get a little more complicated and involved.  It's all good as long as we start working on them early enough.  (Not always the case each year, but we are getting better.)

This year I was in charge of the game for my son's preschool class.  Since there are 7 little boys in that one class and no girls, I wanted something that involved lots of movement.  And, after doing some searching online and on Pinterest, I decided to do a little bowling.

Such a quick and easy project!  You'll probably even have all the supplies on hand.

Whatcha Need:

6 paper towel rolls
14 sheets of orange construction paper
1 sheet of green construction paper
Tape
Permanent marker

Whatcha Do:

Tape 2 & 1/3 sheets of orange paper together.

Roll the orange construction paper around a roll of paper towels.

Repeat for all 6 rolls.

Cut the green construction paper into 6 equal squares and draw stems on each one.

Tape the cut out stems on the orange 'pumpkins'.

Use a permanent marker to draw faces on the 'pumpkins'.  Then set them up to play.

Use a ball to knock the pumpkin pins over.

My little helper - the king of photo bombs!

The game seemed to be a big hit with all the boys at the party today.  Hooray!  They then played tackle bowling with the pins just before we decided it was the end of their party.  Such is life with little boys, right?!

Enjoy your Halloween!

Scrabble Remix

I would love to claim this idea as mine, but I can't.  However, they say imitation is the best form of flattery, right?

My sister gave this to my parents this year for Christmas.

It has all 16 grandkids' names on the game play area and the initials of us kids and our spouses on the side.  I absolutely fell in love with it and decided to make one for my own home!

There was quite a bit of trial and error.  I had to order more tiles off Amazon.com to have enough of the letters I needed, too.  Did you know there are only 2 'V's in a game set?  I managed to use 3 on our board.  I also needed more 'L's, 'S's, 'M's and 'K's.  Spreading everything out on a flat surface and playing around with words and configurations really helped.

I didn't have as many names to work with as my sister, but I was able to fill our board pretty well.  Seven names and a few extra words later, I have my very own board completed.

What do ya think?  I'm so pleased with the results!  Of course, while working on this for our family, I had so many ideas about other themes:

Wedding present - marriage, love, commitment, bride, groom, names, God, faith....
Baby boy - name, date, blessing, gift, love, dirt, trucks, snakes, snails, puppy tails...
Baby girl - name, date, blessing, gift, frills, lace, sugar, spice....
Also, sports, cars, just about any interest.  You could even just have a mock game set up for a game room.  So many ways to do this.  With or without a board, too.

I attached all the letter tiles to the board with rubber cement.  Whatever glue you choose, make sure you don't put on too much.  Don't want it squishing out the sides.  The black background in the shadow box  is fabric, so I was able to use velcro to stabilize the board and the tile holders.  Over all the project is quite easy.  The hardest part was figuring out which words to use.


~~Don't forget the February Special from Shaklee!!~~