making your own fun

The one thing my daughter misses most is Coral Cove, a bouncy house-arcade in our area. After some light googling, I came up with 7 games I could make from things we have at home. Luckily we had tons of stuff, from the recycling bin to the craft room, to make some fun games I knew she would love. 

Easter buckets are aplenty, so Bozo buckets was a must. Flipping a chair over and cutting the center out of paper plates = Ring toss. We used the mini basketball hoop she made for STEM and a laundry basket with a bouncy ball for mega hoops. A rope with a hook attached became a fishing pole. I glued toilet paper tubes to plywood and she rolled a ball across it, trying to get the ball through each tube. I even made a Plinko game by gluing lids to a piece of plywood and putting small containers at the bottom.

Everything was labelled with construction paper and marker. I even chopped up little game tickets and tallied her points. It took one hour to gather, label, and create. The choices were 1. More TV 2. More reading 3. Go to bed early. So creativity won! I created Covid Cove and she thought it was hilarious. 

She patiently used her tickets and helped me tally her points. Her prize list was minimal, but she got to choose from candy, pencils, cookies, ice cream, a makeover or a necklace. She ended up with a little of all of it and an hour of play later she had a big, happy smile.

For some reason, this was a long week. I had a moment. She had a few moments. I wanted to end the work week on a positive and this worked! The dress for the day was onsies and the bar was set very low for expectations and standards, high for laughter and entertainment. I managed another week of pulling off working-momming-quarantining :) 

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