Make Your Own Bowling Game

Do you want to turn basic addition into a fun game for your child? Consisting of paper towel bowling pins, this fun project is sure to show her the value of "trash." Your child won’t even know she’s doing math, but she'll get tons of valuable practice as he adds up his score and keeps track of yours to determine the winner.

What You Need:

• 10 paper towel rolls
• Markers
• Ribbon
• White paper
• Scissors
• White glue
• Small ball

What You Do:

1. You and your child can decorate the ten paper towel rolls—the bowling pins—as you like. By wrapping them in white paper and tying the tops with red ribbon, you can create the appearance of an authentic bowling pin.
2. On the bowling pins, help your child designate a certain number of points, so that each pin is worth a different amount. Have her use a marker to write on each roll how many points that pin is worth.
3. Set up the pins in a triangle, and keep about a foot of space in between the pins. Use any ball you have at home (something smaller than the pins works best) as the bowling ball.
4. Have your child take ten steps back from the pins and roll the ball to try and knock them down. After she has bowled once, have her take a pencil and paper and record the numbers on each of the pins that were knocked down. She can add up the points to see how many she earned. Set-up the pins again for round two!
5. This is a great way for young learners to practice math while playing a game created by them. To make this activity even more challenging, add a mixture of small pins (such as toilet paper rolls) to the large pins.