Marbles!

One of my favorite child hood memories is playing marbles with my little brother, Riley. We had a huge collection of marbles. They were awesome. We had lots of little “mibs” and a bunch of big shooters.  We even had some made out of metal called “steelies.” When we would play marbles, it was all out war. We created bunkers for our marbles where they could hide out until they were used. And we had prisons, where we would keep the captured marbles. We even named our marbles. I remember there being one that was brown and a little bit transparent that I always named “root beer.”  All you need to do is take turns flicking a marble toward the other player’s marble. The first person to hit the other player’s marble wins that round and gets to take the other marble prisoner. Once some one runs out of marbles, the game is over and the person with all the marbles wins. Start with as many marbles as you want, depending on how long you want the game to last.

Another game that you can play with marbles is called, “RINGER”.  To play this game you need to make a circle on the floor. The bigger the circle the harder the game. Use tape or string to mark out the circle. Or you can just draw it into the carpet with a finger like we did in this picture. Pick on marble to shoot with and scatter the rest within the circle. Take turns flicking the shooter at the marbles within the circle. Try to knock a marble out of the circle. You can keep taking a turn until you fail to get one out of the circle, then it goes to the next person. You can keep shooting from where the shooter ends up. If it ends up in the circle, you can start from within the circle, unless the other player knocks it out. The person who wins the most marbles, is the winner! To see a cute video on how to play and the official rules click here.

 

Another fun thing to do with marbles is playing with a marble run. My great aunt Paunie used to have an old wooden one. You know, those tracks that you send marbles through. You can buy cheaper plastic ones that you can put together.

 

They are fun, but I think it would be a fun science experiment to have your kids create their own marble run track out of house hold items. The important thing is to let gravity do the work. You can use toilet paper rolls that are cut in half for tracks and tape them to a wall. You can also place these on a peg board to create a slant. You could also use PVC pipes to create the track. If you are really ambitious, make it go all over your house or use a pulley system. Watch this video below for inspiration:

You can get a bag of marbles a Walmart or and some dollar stores. Inexpensive fun!

Top picture: In flagrante Collecto

Homemade Clay and Volcanoes

I made homemade clay with my nephews the other day. This is a really easy recipe that you can make with ingredients that you probably have at home already. After letting them play with it for a while, we turned it into a volcano with baking soda and vinegar.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tablespoon cream of tartar (find it in the spice section)
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 cup water
• food coloring (gel food coloring will give you the most vivid colors)

For Volcano:

• empty medicine bottle
• baking soda
• vinegar

Directions:

1. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a medium sauce pan. Mix together the water and food coloring until combined. Add the colored water to the dry ingredients and mix together. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until it starts to come together, about 3-5 minutes.

2. The dough will start to clump and become difficult to stir. At this point remove it from the pan and knead it for about 5 minutes. (Have your kids help with this). Store in an air tight container or a Ziploc baggie in the fridge.

To Make the Volcano:

1. Mold the clay into a volcano shape. Create an opening and squish in an empty medicine bottle or small container.

2. Pour some baking soda into the medicine bottle. Pour some vinegar into the opening after the baking powder and watch it foam and bubble up. If you want to, add red or orange food coloring to the vinegar to make it look more like lava.

Note: I am not sure at what temperature or for how long, but you could probably bake it to make a more sturdy volcano. I rinsed the dough off with water and kneaded in a little bit more flour and let the kids keep playing with it. It kind of smelled like vinegar, but it was still usable.