Before you throw that water bottle away, or toss it into the recycle bin, think of some fun and useful ways to give it a new purpose. Use a small water bottle or a gallon size.
Make sure you clean it out well and allow it to dry completely if you plan to store anything in it.
Tip: A little soapy water will clean it out, to remove odors, a little vinegar or baking soda can help eliminate it.
Here is a list of challenges, please choose as many as you would like to do:
· Use it to plant something that can grow during the fall season. (Gallon size plus would be best for this project.)
Learning with Ordinary Household Items – Use regular items from around the house to help create an excellent educational experience. This is an ongoing project.
This month’s household item to learn with is an egg carton.
Egg cartons are available in different types of containers such as plastic, foam, and cardboard. They make a great game board and storage container.
Here are some of the fun games we have made with an egg carton, and brief instructions that you can tweak to fit your family’s needs.
If you would like to put a game making kit together for the following games, you will need:
Egg Cartons 12-36 Cups: Cardboard, foam, plastic
48 Small Items: Gems, stones, marbles, shells, beans, coins, small pom-poms, etc.
6+ Various Items: Small balls, coins, beads, erasers, Legos, anything that will fit in a cup and allow the top to close
Paper and something to write with
Scissors
A Timer
Permanent Marker: A Sharpie type marker.
Optional:
Stickers: Letter, number, character, animal, holiday icons, seasonal, etc.
Paint and a paint brush
Games To Play
An Eggcellent Game – Instructions and fun ways to play the game can be found in this post.
Mancala – This is a fun game for two players. Instructions for how to play can be found in the video provided.
To play, you will need 48 small items such as beans, marbles, stones, large seeds, etc.. two bowls and a 12 cup egg carton. A plastic egg carton is great for this game and items can be stored within it. For written instructions: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-play-mancala-409424
Memory Challenge: 12+ cup carton with a top, 6 or more various items, a timer, and number stickers or a permanent marker.
Set Up: Write or put number stickers on the bottom of the carton.
How to Play: Place objects in the cups any way you like, then take 30 seconds to look at their placement, close the top and try to remember where they all are.
If playing alone, write or draw your answers. If playing with others, tell someone your answer and have them tell you if you are right or wrong. You can say cup # 2 is a purple circle, etc…
Use different objects and add more as you get better at the game.
ABC Toss – Egg carton with 12-24 cups, alphabet stickers or a permanent marker with a fine tip, something to toss, such as 6 small balls, coins to flip, paper and something to write with
Set up: Put stickers or write letters randomly at the bottom of the egg cups. Be sure to have at least 2-3 vowels (a, e, i, o, u) in your cups
How to play: 1 player tosses or flips 6 objects into the cups, all players collect the letters and write them down. Players use the letters to make at least 3 words as quickly as possible. Then the next player tosses or flips to choose letters and play continues.
Be sure at least one vowel is selected on each player’s turn. Players can decide together what letter to trade out for the vowel.
Scoring: 1 pt for 3 letter words, 2 pts for 4, 3 pts for 5 or more.
Add twists and turns to make the game more interesting.
Coming Soon
Category Toss – This game uses the ABC carton. Click on the name for instructions.
Check back for more fun games to play with egg cartons.
Before you throw away that old deck of playing cards, take a minute to think about how they can be reused in some useful or fun way. This post offers some interesting ideas.
A set of old playing cards does not have to be full in order for them to be useful and fun.
Related Posts on FranW.com
Cardstacker– Meet Bryan Berg, a professional cardstacker who builds huge structures with decks of playing cards…without glue!
Cup and Card Stacking – Use playing cards with stacking cups. How high can you stack cups with cards between each one. Cards can be used to tell players how many cups they need to stack. Take out lower cards to make it more challenging for players. Challenge players to pull the cards out so the cups slide back into each other to form a neat stack.
Last One Standing – A strategy game the grows with the players and gets more challenging. Animal Tracker – Learn how to identify signs of animal life in lots of different places!
FranW.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.