Rainy Day Activity: Indoor Bowling

We've played this a few times now and it remains a favorite. The first time we played, I threw this all together just to have something fun to do on a rainy day (after I'd been asked if we could watch TV a few too many times).

For whatever reason, I tend to not toss our toilet paper rolls since they are so useful for crafts so I had 10 on hand to use for pins.  I originally wanted to mark the spots for the pins on the floor with masking tape but couldn't find it. Instead, I used one of our old placemats that I keep in the craft cupboard (that happened to have a grid on it) marking pin places with a whiteboard crayon. It was great that he could set them up, allowing him to play it on his own as well.

We also got out a whiteboard and kept score (just counting pins knocked down -- not true bowling score keeping).  The first game, I wrote the numbers after my son counted pins.  Other games I've written all the numbers at the bottom of the board and had him try to copy them into the correct square.  Great for counting practice, number writing and recognition.  With older kids, you could have them count the standing pins and practice subtracting from 10 or work on addition by keeping a running total.

Simple but fun!