Tag: easy games for kids

Valentine’s Day Bingo!

February 8, 2022

Well if you know us, you know we have a bingo game for just about every holiday and party. Why? Because they are easy, fun and you can make it a quick filler activity or drag it out and play it different ways.

We used Swedish Fish this time as our markers because we had them on hand but Valentine’s Day m&ms are another popular one for us often times. Really just about any food you have on hand can probably make it more fun for kids…marshmallows, pretzels, goldfish, etc.

We usually make these quite a bit bigger but we made little mini bingo cards this time (as far as the number of spaces) just to try it out. We actually loved it because if you are just doing three in a row they are nice FAST games but you can still drag it out by playing black out or just get a bunch of quick games in there leaving everyone engaged and wanting a turn because it’s a quick turnaround. It helps that each card is slightly different, not just with the pictures being in different locations but each card has a couple pics the others don’t. The FREE printout is at the bottom of this post.

We’ve been using the game as a quick break from school work or chores and have been loving it. We hope you do too!

xo,
Jenny

v-day-bingoDownload

Parts of Speech Game

September 7, 2020

While working on the parts of speech why not make a game out of it to keep them practicing?! You will need a Scattergories dice with letters on it and make your own dice template like the one below.

dice-templateDownload

Once you print the template fill it out with the parts of speech you are working on. We did verb, adverb, noun, adjective, pronoun and then “your choice”.

Have your child roll the dice. Look at what part of speech has landed up and then at which letter is facing up. They have to give an example of that part of speech that starts with the letter that is shown. Example: you roll “noun” and “r” and you could say, “remote control”.

One of the great things about this game is watching your kids easily remember what each of the parts of speech is. I would quiz them here and there before on what an adjective or verb was and they would always hesitantly reply. Now, we can be out somewhere and I will say, “Verb, S, go!” and they will immediately respond, “verb is an action…squatting!” It’s always fun seeing progress in your kids! 👏🏻

If you don’t have a Scattergories die no worries! Just print two of the templates and fill one of them in with 6 common letters such as T, S, R, W, N, M.

Hope you have fun!

xoxo,
Jenny B

A Native American Game

September 2, 2020

When we were reading the book, The Courage of Sarah Noble, we read a chapter that talked about the Native American children playing (I’ll leave it at that as to not spoil the book for anyone). As we were doing our discussion for that days reading we talked about what type of games the children may have been playing. Afterwards, we decided to learn a new game that perhaps they may have played. ** Now to be completely transparent this is a Native American themed game, I do not know if this is an authentic game they played. **

The first thing you will need to do is get 6 popsicle sticks. Distribute them to the kids. Have them color 1 side of each of the popsicle sticks they were given. I printed a paper that had a bunch of Native American hieroglyphics on them and what they mean, some kids chose to color their own designs and some chose to put little “stories” on their stick using the hieroglyphics. You will also need to have some sort of tokens to be playing for. We used beans, you could also use corn kernels, candy, pennies, whatever you want. How many you are playing with will also depend on how long you want the game to last. We did a pile of 20. Keep them off to the side as you start the game.

Now to play the game! Gather all the sticks from everyone. The child going first will drop all of them at once. Now you have to read the sticks….

If 3 of the colored sides are up and 3 are facing down, you get to pull ONE bean from the pile.

If all of the plain sides are showing/facing up you get TWO beans from the pile.

If all of the colored sides are facing up you get THREE beans from the pile.

Any other combination means you don’t get any beans and it moves to the next player. You keep taking turns until all the beans are distributed OR you can keep playing and start taking beans from another player once the jackpot pile is gone until 1 player has ALL of the beans.

This is also a great game if it’s a rainy day and you want the kids to take a break from technology but don’t want the mess of a board game.

Our cute 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.

xoxo,
Jenny

Playdough + Game = FUN!

March 27, 2020

Kids love playing with playdough and they love playing games so when you add the two it makes for quite the fun experience.

We took Pictionary and used playdough in place of drawing and we got quite a kick out of how easy we thought each would be but our molds never quite came out the way we had imagined. 🤣

Some of our favorites to attempt to create were: spaghetti, hammer, dancer, horse, ribbon and book. Some of these were our favorites because we were proud of how good we did and others because we got a kick out of how hard they were.

The moment Parker guessed Andi’s “dancer”. The first guess was “a one legged girl” 😂 I mean, I do see both.

The kids were having enough fun with it that they played until they went through all of the cards I had made. It was a definite win in our house!

X’s & O’s

June 6, 2019

There’s nothing like a classic game with a fun twist to entertain your kids and give you a little break this summer. Cut out some X’s and O’s {even better if you can laminate them so they’ll last you awhile!) and then bust out some masking tape and tape a tic tac toe board onto the ground. There is something about tape on the floor that feels super special for these kiddos, kind of like they’re breaking rules but mom is encouraging it and our wannabe rebel kids love it. 🙂