Thursday, October 28, 2010

A New Game

Along with some of our other standard games we are bringing to the homeschool party and including in our family party, we are trying our hand at a new one.

St. Nicholas's Coin Toss


Remembering the story of St. Nicholas delivering the three bags of gold as dowries for the three young girls and honoring the idea of St. Nick's fascination with chimneys, we constructed a chimney, of sorts, out of an empty box some brown wrapping paper and construction paper "bricks". I also made six bags of "gold" to go along with it. I like games like this for big groups because it can so easily be adjusted for children of different ages. Wee ones only have to get one bag in and they can toss from closer up. Big kids have to stand further back and try to get all three bags in.


Here is a picture of one of the bags opened up. I used a dinner plate to trace the circles, cut them with pinking shears and tied them with rubber bands. Couldn't have been easier and my kids say that the large lima beans really feel like coins inside. My only tip from letting the children practice with it... place your chimney up against a wall or weigh it down on the inside with a real brick or a heavy book so that it doesn't keep tipping over.

10 comments:

  1. Cute, cute. I wish I had a party to which I could bring a game!

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  2. This is our first year to get together with our homeschool group for a party. Usually, our parties are just at home and include the girl cousins. (Not that we intentionally exclude our boy cousins, they just happen to live in your neck of the woods and not here!)

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  3. I'll have to file this one away for St. Nicholas Day! :) Pretty sure the kids will demand a theme party this year since it's their brother's first birthday and he's too young to have input!

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  4. I am going to use this idea for St. Nicks Day in our home:)

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  5. Very cute! I'll have to keep this idea in mind for our Advent party this year :)

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  6. This was a big hit at our party last night! Even the big kids who are beyond dressing up wanted to play! I think some of the dad's would have joined in too, except we told them they had to shoot from half court!

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  7. Charlotte,
    I thought I'd comment here, since I linked a thank you to you on my All Saints post. I had been looking for one last game to do with my boys, and I knew this was it when I came across it. Thank you! For all of your inspiring blog content!
    God Bless,
    Mrs. Smith
    http://happycatholichome.blogspot.com/2010/11/feast-of-all-saints.html

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  8. I'm so happy I just found this (again) by accident! I saw it a few weeks ago, just what we needed for our St. Nick party - then I couldn't find it again! (I couldn't remember where I had seen it.) So I had to improvise from memory. It was a huge success! We divided the kids into groups of 4, by age, and let them toss the 3 bags. Highest score in each group won a prize (we had a few toss-offs, good fun!) We moved the younger ones closer. It was so cute. Everyone loved it!! Thanks for the idea, Charlotte. You can see my chimney at my blog: http://soulsarefed.blogspot.com/2010/12/st-nicholas-day-party.html

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