Games Room Website Activity Section

Room Overview: In the games room we encourage and help children collaborate with accountability and respect through a variety of games and activities. We offer games like air hockey, foosball, and ping pong as well as activities like Legos, blocks, and Wii all to teach children how to ask one another to take turns in the hopes of setting up a foundation of a skill set to help children work well with others in their future. The games room in a single sentence is a place where the children control their own fun with their imagination and the recourses we provide.

Week 1 Activities:

1. Memory (Concentration) a. Deal out all the cards face down on the table. b. Players take turns to flip over 2 cards. If they flip over a pair that matches, they win the pair and get to have another go. If not, the next player takes a turn. c. If you are playing with a standard set of cards, you can either allow matching the same number and same color card or just the same value. d. At the end, the player with the most cards wins. 2. DIY Flight School a. Get a large piece of paper and cut out various sized holes. b. Attach a number value to each hole (I recommend to follow an increasing point value from the largest to the smallest hole) your target is now ready. c. Fold your paper airplanes. d. Decorate the target and planes however you desire. e. Have fun! 3. Build pillow fort. 4. Play hide and seek with your family. 5. Ping Pong trick shots a. Search Ping Pong trick shots on YouTube (my favorite video is any Dude Perfect one) for inspiration. 6. Make a fun healthy snack like ants on a log. a. All you need is celery raisins and peanut butter

Week 2 Activities:

1. Go Fish a. Shuffle the cards and deal them out to the players. For 2 players, deal each player 7 cards; for 3 players, deal 6 cards; and for 4 players, deal 5 cards. Place the remaining cards randomly in the middle of the table. b. Each player looks at their cards secretly. c. The first player to take a turn chooses another player and asks them if they have any cards of a certain value. They must have a card of the number they ask about in their hand. For example, they must have one or more Kings to ask for a King. d. If the player who is asked has any cards of the value requested, they must hand them over. The player who asked for the cards can then take another turn and ask for another card. e. If the player who is asked has no cards of the requested value, they must tell the player to 'Go fish.' The player must then take a card from the center. f. At any point, if a player collects a set of 4 of the same kind, they win the cards and put them aside in their winner's pile. g. Play continues until all sets of 4 cards have been collected. The winner is the player with the most sets of 4 cards at the end. 2. DIY Skee Ball a. Materials: Empty laundry baskets, cardboard box, paper, as many tennis balls as you can find (to reduce reload times), tape b. Build a ramp from the cardboard box c. Write different point values on various pieces of paper and attach to the laundry baskets d. Set a line to roll from with your tape e. Have fun! 3. Learn how to juggle (YouTube is a great recource) 4. Make an obstacle course around the house inside or out. 5. Create a time capsule to remember the time we had no school for an entire month. 6. Have a family movie night with a bug blanket and lots of popcorn!

Week 3 Activities:

1. Crazy Eights a. In a two-player game, each player is dealt seven cards. In a game with three or four players, each player is dealt five cards. b. The rest of the deck goes facedown in a pile, with the top card turned up beside it. This is the discard pile. c. The player to the left of the dealer discards a card from his hand that matches either the number or suit of the top card in the discard pile. For example, if the card is a five of hearts, he could play any heart or any five. If he does not have a matching card, he continues picking up cards from the deck until he gets one that is playable. d. Eights are wild and can be put down on any suit. For example, an eight could be played to match a heart. e. The next player must match their card to the number or suit that the eight was meant to cover. f. Play continues with players matching the card at the top of the discard pile. The first player to use up all his cards wins. If the deck runs out before the game is over, the discard pile can be used. 2. DIY Paratrooper a. Find a small figure like a Lego man/woman b. Cut a large square out of a plastic bag and punch holes on the corners c. Get two pieces of string and tie knots in the holes in the bag and hook the loops under the figure’s arms d. Let em fly! 3. Create a cardboard box house. 4. Go practice your favorite sport outside. 5. Challenge your family to thumb wrestles. 6. Help your family make lunch or dinner.

Week 4 Activities:

1. Mission Impossible maze a. Using streamers, string, or toilet paper if you can spare a roll create a web in a hallway that your kids will have to crawl through without tripping a motion sensor. 2. Create a stained-glass window a. Tape a sheet of clear plastic to a window in your house b. Cut out an assortment of colored paper c. Let your kid paste or tape them to the sheet 3. Build a bridge out of Legos or blocks and see how much it can hold. 4. Wait till it’s almost dark out and play flashlight tag in your yard. 5. Have a good old-fashioned pillow fight (just no tempur-pedic pillows) 6. Lego marble maze a. You’ll need a Lego platform a few dozen Lego bricks and a marble b. Bild your own maze and time how long it takes you to navigate your way through only tilting the platform.