Backyard Bottle Bowling

One of my readers sent me this idea. It’s one of those fab simple things you can pull out on a lazy Saturday afternoon for some family fun. Fabulous to keep in mind for Christmas or the school holidays!

What you need

10 Empty 1.25 L Bottles

Food colouring – 3 colours (optional)

Large Ball

Water

How to play

1. Fill the bottles with water.  The more full they are, the harder they will be to push over.  

2. Add a few drops of food colouring to the water, depending on how many pins you have. If you don’t have colouring, you could just make a mark with permanent marker or adjust the game to simply knocking them down.

When the kids and I played this game, we decided to have different points for each colour, the clear (no colouring) being the least and the blue being the greatest points.  The idea is to add up how many you knock over! For example, if you knocked over the clear, 2 x red, 1 green and 1 blue it would be: 1 + 4 + 3 + 4 = 12. A strike would be 30. Great little maths project!

3. Mark a line with chalk (or just make a mark with a stick or whatever) to stand behind and roll the ball!  Make it harder/easier by standing back further from the pins.

4. Take turns and when you’re done, tip the water into the garden and recycle the bottles.