Activity:
Egg Carton Game
Similar to a carnival toss, this egg carton toss game helps develop your child's fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination while building his math skills. He'll get some good addition practice in as he tosses balls into the egg cartons and adds up his score. The game is easily customized; its difficulty can be tailored to your child's competency level and increased as your child advances in skill. Played inside on a rainy day or outside in the sun, it's sure to provide hours of entertainment and educational fun.
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What You Need:
- 6-8 egg cartons, lids removed
- Ink markers or spray paint in 3 or 4 different colors
- 6-10 foam or soft fleece balls no larger than golf ball size (ping pong balls also work well)
- Duct tape
- Stapler
- Pen or pencil
- Paper
What You Do:
To make the egg carton toss game:
- Have your child color the bottom of each section of the egg cartons in different colors with ink markers or spray paint. Each color will represent a different point value, so arrange the colors with that in mind. You can give each carton its own color, make each carton half one color and half another, etc.
- Help your child staple the egg cartons together in three places along their long sides. Place a strip of duct tape over the staples to reinforce the connection. To make storing the game easier, connect the egg cartons in pairs only.
To play the game:
- Assign each color a point value (for example, blue=10 points, red=20 points, etc.). Choose the point scale based on your child's math skill. If your child is advanced, you can increase the scale and use odd and even numbers to make the addition problems more difficult.
- Have your child arrange the egg cartons on a flat surface so that the color worth the most points is in the back and the color worth the least is in the front.
- Have your child stand about 4 feet away and toss the foam or fleece balls into the egg cartons. Have him keep score with a pen and paper, adding up his points as he goes.
- To give the game an extra dimension, designate a few holes as bonus holes (use a small object like a coin to mark them) or experiment with different carton configurations, perhaps arranging them on different levels by placing them on stairs or shoeboxes.
