Like most other kids his
age, my 8 year old son is FULL of energy! He is constantly in motion and is
ready for a game of tag or catch at any time. As the Mama of a go, go, goer, I
am always looking for a good way for my busy bee to burn up some of that energy.
My son really likes games so I thought that a set of activity dice would be
good for him. He could use them anytime, indoors or outdoors and be spending
some of that excess energy! Sounds good to me!
Making these activity dice
was really simple and only took about 1 hour, including drying time. Keep in
mind that the more paint that you put on your dice, the longer they will take to
fully dry, so project times may vary. Here’s what ya do:
Supplies Needed
*2 bare wood blocks any
size but kids tend to like the larger, more chunky ones, especially younger
kids. The ones I used were 1 ¾”.
* White Acrylic Craft
Paint
* A paintbrush
* A paint cup or tray, or
whatever you want to paint from
* Some sort of covering
for your work surface to protect it from getting paint on it. I just used some
newspaper
* Several Permanent
Markers in Assorted Colors
Step 1: Prepare your space
Gather materials and lay
out whatever you are using to cover your work surface. Squeeze a little white
acrylic paint into your paint cup or tray.
Step 2: Paint all but one
side of your wooden blocks with the white paint. Let the blocks dry to the
touch with the un-painted side down. Once the blocks are dry to the touch, paint
the un-painted bottoms and let dry. Repeat this process until you are satisfied
with the color. I did 3 coats of paint on mine. Let them dry.
Step 3: Taking only one
dice, write 1 activity on each side of the dice until all the sides have an age
appropriate activity written on them. Be sure to use actions that your child is
capable of doing. For example, you could write “hop on one foot” or “pretend
like you’re swimming” or “run in place as fast as you can” for older kids, or
“march in place” or “jump” for the younger set. Set aside.
Step 4: Using the other
blank dice, write different times on each side. Keep in mind that you don’t
want to put more than a couple minutes on there and limit the times to seconds
if you are using these dice with young children or toddlers, they’re only kids
after all. I did 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 45 seconds, 1 minute 30
seconds, and 1 minute 45 seconds.
That’s it! So easy and
your kids will love them!
So now what, right? Get
your activity dice, grab a timer that is capable of timing seconds, and grab your
kids, you’re ready to play!
Here’s how:
If there is more than one
child playing, decide how turns will be made. Have the first player roll both
dice (one at a time, both together, it doesn’t matter). That player must do the
action that is on the activity dice for as long as they rolled on the time
dice. For example, say little Timmy rolled “Hop on One Foot” and “30 Seconds”.
He would then have to hop on one foot for 30 seconds. Pretty self-explanatory.
Keep track of the time and once the first player is done with their action, it’s
the next person’s turn.
There are so many benefits
to this game. It can be played with as few or as many players as you want, you can play it for as long or short of a time as you want, it
teaches younger children how to follow simple instructions, and older children
that can read can play it by themselves. It is also a great way to incorporate
more physical activity into anyone’s day ( ahem, parents included) and it gets
out some of that pent up energy that kids seem to accumulate so easily.
My son enjoys playing with
these dice so much I just had to pass them along to you guys! I hope that the
children in your life enjoy them just as much. Enjoy!
See you again soon!
Kellie
