Day 62: Glow-in-the-Dark Indoor Bowling
- Details
- Category: Summer
- Published: Saturday, 27 July 2013 01:00
Looking for a fun twist on an evening in with the kids? Try glow-in-the-dark nighttime bowling at home.
It's bowling with a little something extra that is sure to get your kids so excited they'll jump off the couch, turn off the TV and play—no silly shoes required! Here's how...
| What You'll Need: 6 glow sticks 1 ball heavy enough to knock over water bottles (We used a small basketball.) 6 water bottles Paper and pencil to keep score |
Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes to prepare your pins
Activity Time: |
| Location: Indoors: A clear hallway, kitchen or living area (Make sure to remove all fragile or breakable items when bowling inside.) Outdoors: A relatively level patio, playground, driveway or grassy area (Use caution if you are near a street.) |
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#1: Get Your Pins Ready
It's easy to set up the cool, glowing pins of nighttime bowling. The secret is the glow sticks. I picked up two packs of Coleman Illumisticks from Target when I stopped to get some milk. They're also available on Amazon. They were quite bright and colorful. I'm sure the dollar store–variety glow sticks would work just as well as the Coleman brand.
Follow the directions on the glow stick packages and "crack" your glow sticks to activate the chemicals. My kids had a blast cracking the glow sticks and dropping them in the bottles of water.
#2: Get Your Pins Glowing
Add one glow stick to each water bottle to create six bowling pins. Be sure toleave approximately 1 inch (2.54 cm) of headspace in the water bottles to prevent overflow when adding the glow sticks.
Peel the labels off of the water bottles to make it easier to see the glowing pins.
Turn off the lights to see the full effect of the glowing pins.
#3: Set Up the Bowling Alley
Nighttime bowling is well-suited to either indoor or outdoor play. If you're enjoying a warm summer evening outside, set up your pins on a patio, playground, level driveway or flat grassy area.If you'd rather stay indoors, all you need is to set a a clear path in a hallway, kitchen or other living area. To avoid the rain and banana slugs that frequent our yard in Seattle, we opted to play indoors.
Set pins up in a triangle formation approximately 4 to 6 inches apart:
• 3 pins in the back row
• 2 pins in the middle row
• 1 pin in front
#4: The Rules: By the Book or Create Your Own
Traditional bowling rules are a bit complex, especially for younger children.
I wanted to focus more on having fun than on fiddling with the rules in the dark, so I pared down the rules to simplify things:
• For each game, you play 10 frames, or rounds.
• During each frame, every player has a turn to knock down as many pins as possible.
• Players get to roll the ball twice each turn. If a player knocks down all the pins (a strike), they only roll the ball once for that turn.
• Players receive 1 point for each pin knocked down. Have a paper and pencil handy to keep score.
Bowling Lingo:
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Educational Conversation Starters:
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10 things you probably didn't know about bowling:
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Source: My Kids Adventures
