When Addiction Pays Off…

 

Ok, so when my husband and I started dating, we would go to a coffee shop for hours and he would sip on hot chocolate while I drank more than my weight in coffee creamer, er, I mean coffee….

Since that time (many many moons ago) I have officially created a coffee drinker out of my husband, and now our household consumes entirely too much coffee creamer in any given week.  A few months ago (I won’t tell you exactly how many or you will do the math and figure out the depths of our addiction), the oldest child said, “Hey, can I start saving the coffee creamer containers?”  This was not a surprise coming from her since she could re-purpose a dead cat, but I try to pursuade her only to save things that truly have some function left to them.  I asked her what she needed the containers for and she said, “well, they kinda look like bowling pins”.  I had to admit – she was on to something!  So we began saving up as many as we could, because of course this CC mama’s first thought was, “we could make that into a fun review game!”  The other day, we realized we had many more pins than we needed, and so we hauled them out and created our new bowling set.  This is already adding some fun to our winter days.  Check out these pictures!

We rinsed out the containers as soon as we had used them, so they were already dry and ready to go.  We cut the labels off of the bottles, and then filled them with 1/2 cup of aquarium rocks (you could use sand if you wanted as well.  We just had a lot of aquarium rocks since we had decided to have an aquarium of goldfish two years ago.  18 dead goldfish in 4 weeks told us maybe that wasn’t a good idea, but I digress…) As long as the containers are completely dry, glue the lids onto the containers, and the snap part of the lid shut.  I then printed labels with the various topics and an associated picture (I can email you the file if you want them) and stuck the labels to the bottles.  We use the bowling pins two ways:

1. We line them up in a line, and the kids aim for the topic they want to answer.  Whichever ones they knock over, they have to answer.

2. I set up the pins just like bowling.   I ask the kids  a question from our memory work and if they get it right they roll the ball, and I record their “points” – the number of pins they knocked down.  When we are trying to get a lot of review in, I make them answer three questions prior to bowling.  We have had a lot of fun with it, and I thought you might too!

Ok, so here is what you need:

– 10 Coffeemate Large Creamer bottles

– we used large labels that I printed and stuck to the containers (you could just glue a label, or skip them all together and just play game #2 above)

– sand or small aquarium rocks for the bottom of the containers

– glue (keep the sand in the can!)

– smaller-sized rubber ball

 

I am sure there are more things we will use these for in the future.  BONUS – the one year old likes shakin’ them for a maraca!  Never a dull moment….

What fun games does your family play to change up review time?  I’d love to hear your ideas!