Creative Ways to Beat the Winter Blues

      

      

The winter months always seem to be the longest ones of the year.  The blustery cold temperatures and numerous inches of snow tends to give kids the “winter blues” and can stop them from having a lot of fun.  If your kids are stuck in the house with nothing to do, give them some paper tubes to create some fun and easy games to help clear their winter frustration.

Take a few plastic cups and tape them to the edge of an island countertop or to the edge of your dining room table.  Each child will have a paper tube and a few ping pong balls.  Whoever can blow the most ping pong balls into their cup, wins!  Do you have a few small marbles lying around?  If so, you can create a paper tube marble run.  Tape the paper tubes to a cardboard box and cut a small half circle out of each of the tops so the marble can drop down to the next tube.  You can make this as small or as big as you’d like.

Create a ring toss course using paper plates and tubes.  The paper tubes can be different sizes to create a level of difficulty and the kids can paint the paper tubes and make each color a certain amount of points.  Do your kids love bowling but are stuck inside?  Bring the bowling alley to your house by painting and numbering paper tubes and setting them up the bowling pins.  A golf ball, tennis ball, or a medium size bouncy ball can be used to knock the tubes down.  The game possibilities are always endless when using paper tubes!