We have taken a break from games (memory and lucky dip) in our egg carton craft series and got right to the yummy part of Valentine’s Day with a Valentine Chocolate Box. This was all we needed to make our special … Continue reading
Here we are at the third installment of Mudpies and Sunshine’s world famous Valentine’s Egg Carton Craft Series. We painted the egg cartons in the first post; in the second we tested our brain power with the memory game and now we will be playing a game of chance (with many giggles) called the Lucky Dip Game.
Here’s how I set up the game:
Once I was all set up I invited the girls to sit on the rug and get started. There are no rules with how far away from the egg carton you need to be (however you may wish to shake things up a bit and have a throwing line).
1. Sit down.
2. Choose a felt ball.
3. Throw the felt ball into any cavity in the egg carton.
4. Ascertain the sticker colour and style your felt ball landed on.
5. Find the matching sticker on one of the 12 envelopes.
6. Open the envelope, read the note and have fun. The notes are self-explanatory.
The one Zoe is reading says “Ring the Garden Bells“.
I wrote the activities for the envelopes and placed all the stickers on the envelopes and the egg carton in around 15 minutes. It is a simple game and it is SO FUN. The best part is you can tailor the activities/questions to suit the personality of your children.
The girls loved the game and we have played it multiple times already. When the game gets a bit ‘stale’ I will change the notes inside the envelopes. The beauty is the game can be adapted over and over again.
Now let me share some of the other notes inside the envelopes :
Time for a Tickle
Walk Around the Kitchen With Your Eyes Closed
Do a Crazy Dance for 60 Seconds
(Zoe added a crazy song as well, 2 for the price of 1)
Receive a Surprise Sweet Treat (both players benefit..and Mums)
I added a token educational question…
Do Ten Star Jumps
Stand on One Leg as Long as You Can
Give Everyone a Big Hug
I also had one called “Take Another Turn” which Zoe got and was thrilled with (go figure because, in hindsight, I am of the opinion that one is a bit boring!).
Ebony was lucky to get “Say the Peter Piper Tongue Twister 10 times as fast as You Can” and “Put a Toy Away” (she chose a book to place back on the shelf).
Does your family love playing games together? If you give this game a go I would love to hear about (or even see it if you are able to send a snapshot!).
For little ones I suggest using one word prompts for early readers or pictures of the activity the child needs to do for the pre-reader or toddler.
We’re not finished with the pink and red egg cartons yet! Oh no no no. There are more crafty ideas to come in this egg carton series and they will be coming to you soon! Just in time for you to play some lovely games and spend some quality time with your little cherubs this Valentine’s Day.
Have (lots of) fun!
Thanks so much for dropping by 
Following on from yesterday’s post about our new Valentine’s Day Egg Carton craft series, we have our second activity ready to share. The first activity was painting two egg cartons in Valentines theme colours.
Today’s post is all about a game to play in your egg cartons. Believe me it is fun to play and easy to set up.
1. Gather together little objects that are small enough to fit into the egg cavities inside the egg carton. We used red and pink fabric hearts, buttons and pom poms.
2. One player places as many items as they wish in the cavities (up to 6 or 12 depending on the size of your egg carton). The other player has to look at and try to remember what the objects are and where they have been placed in the egg carton. (You may decide to have a time limit on how long the second player can look at the egg carton’s contents. We chose not to. We just all decided when we were ready. No one looked for more than a minute if that helps).
3. Once the second player has looked at the egg carton content long enough – the carton is closed and the contents can no longer be seen. The second player then, relying on their memory, places objects into the second carton to replicate what was in the first carton.
4. Once the second player is satisfied with their efforts the first player opens the first carton to reveal the original contents. Both players react accordingly 
5. To keep everyone in the family happy, the levels of difficulty should be age appropriate.
We all loved this game! To be honest I was quite nervous when Ebony asked me if she could set up a game for me. It really does test your brain power. The game also requires you to try out different tactics or strategies. How are you going to choose to remember items and their location?
Ebony was the first one to test her memory. The girl loves a challenge, bless her!
I was slightly jealous of her nerves of steel
My tip – start off small so as to encourage further and more difficult play.
1st game – good result! There is alot of anticipation as you open that original egg carton after you have been wrangling with your memory! Here is Ebony setting up my first memory game…
I could literally feel my brain’s engine whirring and whining as I asked it to work hard for me And *phew*after a few LONG seconds of checking my efforts, Ebony closed the lids and gave me this beaming smile…
I didn’t embarrass myself and my generation!! Don’t worry I did later on. In fact we all found combinations that were just too tricky or too plentiful. We stuck to 8 eight items as a shot at 12 was a disaster (for me!). Up to 8 items was lots of fun and very doable.
For Zoe I started off small to give her a clear idea of what to do (I placed only two items in the carton for first game). She was happy with that. Then afterwards Zoe asked to increase the numbers until we ended up using 6 or 7 with her as per the photo below.
To press home how much the girls enjoyed it they kept saying “I can’t wait to play this with Dad”. He was barely in the door a minute before he was sitting at the kitchen table trying to remember where fluffy pom poms and soft hearts were supposed to be placed in an egg carton. And he was silly enough to think he could ‘switch off’ once he left work!
Little tip: ensure there is alot of each item so that there are enough supplies for the second player.
Have fun with the game and don’t forget to come back tomorrow to check out our third egg carton activity.
Thanks so much for dropping by!
School is back for both my girls so we are doing things a little more slowly around here. Not less craft, just more efficient craft. So to achieve some efficiency I decided that we would use two egg cartons to create 5 different craft activities. There might end up being more, who knows? I can always edit!
To start with and in keeping with the Valentines theme, I invited the girls to paint an egg carton each, anyway they liked – using pink and red paint.
If you have kids who love paint, then just being able to paint is an activity all of its own. Ebony was tired and found the painting relaxing…Zoe had a bit more energy and was thinking purely of decoration.
Paint, paint, paint. It’s a busy job this.
I love the preciseness of Ebony’s paintwork. She wasn’t going to just slap on the paint. Not when she found out the egg cartons were for a blog series
The plan for the series is to use the egg cartons for lots of Valentine’s themed fun. And here they are, all dry and ready for action.
Are you going to join us on this craft series? If so, starting is easy. Paint, egg cartons and those crafty kids you’ve got.
The next post in this series will be posted here tomorrow – so stay tuned!
P.S This might be a handy time to sign up to the blog if you haven’t already. Posts straight into your email in-box so you don’t miss a thing.
Thanks so much for dropping by!
