School project or not?

Along with the other piles of homework Ebi-kun gets from school, he has to do a project of some kind. The instructions are very vague! He made this mouse game just for fun and daddy suggested he used it for his school project but it got rejected by the boy (I think this about the third or forth rejection!)

The game is fun though...

He used one of those plastic balls from the gatcha gatcha machine and stuck on eyes, ears, nose and a magnet for a mouth. Then poked a long stick through one of the holes and used a pipe cleaner to make a tale.

Then, with some help from me (to draw the cheese pattern) he made up several blocks of cheese and stapled some of the sides.

The aim of the game is to get the mouse to pick up the cheese and dump it over the side of the box, not as easy as it looks!

And this is why it is a good idea to have a box full of crafty bits that you can pull out and dump in front of your child when you have a work deadline to meet!

Going For Gold...

I spotted this download from Tinyme Games, it has popped up on several blogs I read over the last couple of days and since we are studying the Olympics just now, I thought I would have a look. If you click through there are loads of printables and the design work is really cute. We downloaded the board game, printed it onto card and gave it a test run this afternoon.

image: Tinyme

If you are making this for little ones I recommend just making the dice then folding the counters over to make a triangle because that are a bit of a faff to stick together and too difficult for Ebi-kun to do alone. We played it a couple of times, it was fun but Ebi-kun said next time we should make the forfeits more difficult as long as he doesn't expect me to do the 100m dash or high jump! 

At the end of the day, it's cute, it's free and it's topical, what more could you want?

Sumo fun

This is an easy and fun activity and Ebi-kun is loving it!

You will need

• a cardboard box, square if possible
• construction paper
• marker pens
• scissors

Take a cardboard box and stick the flaps down. Use the box as a template 

and cut a piece of construction paper to fit the top of the box.

Use a plate and draw a circle on the paper and in the middle

two lines, as shown below. Stick the construction paper to the top of the box.

Fold a piece of construction paper in half and draw half a sumo wrestler, 

roughly 8cm high, cut out the first one then use it as a template to make the second.

Decorate the wrestlers

Stand each wrestler on a line in the centre of the ring, then together 

tap the edges of the box to make the wrestlers move.

The loser is the first wrestler to fall over or step outside of the ring.