Yesterday we talked about how to make some super quick and easy bean bags for the kiddos. If you missed yesterday’s post, you can find it here: https://thekidsniche.com/2020/01/23/making-easy-bean-bags/ Today let’s move on to games you can play with bean bags. My guess is that you played with bean bags when you were a kid. I know I did and I loved them!
1.) Bean Bag Toss – This game can be played by yourself or with another person. If playing alone, toss the bean bag up in the air a little bit and catch it. Each time you toss it, toss it up a little bit higher than the last time. How many times can you toss it up and still catch it without missing? 🙂 If you have another person you can play with start by standing close together. Toss the bean bag back and forth between you but each time you throw it, take a small step backwards so that the distance between you gradually increases. How many times can your team throw it and catch it without missing? If you miss catching it, then it’s time to start over! If you have a lot of people, make teams of 2 people each and compete to see which team can get the farthest apart without missing a catch.
2.) Make a Basket – Cornhole is a very popular game these days and it involves throwing bean bags at a board that has a hole in it and trying to get the bean bags to go into the hole. Using the same idea, look around your house for anything that would work to toss bean bags into. Depending on the age of the kids playing, find items that they will be able to throw the bags into. For instance, if a very young child is playing you might start with a laundry basket. The idea is to get some scores and feel happy about playing. 🙂 Add in smaller containers for kids that are a little older. Here’s the setup I came up with on the spur of the moment.
You can add point scores for each item with the smaller openings having the higher score value. As you can see, I used a laundry basket, 2 plastic containers with a bit different size openings, an empty tissue box and the lid to one of the plastic containers.
Yea!! A score of 160!! 🙂 You don’t have to add points in if you just want to have fun trying to get the bean bags into the containers.
3.) Magic Bean Bags – Kids have wonderful imaginations and bean bags can turn into so many things! You can likely hand them several bean bags and just watch to see what they dream up. One fun idea is to pretend that the bean bags contain magical beans. What do magical beans do? Whatever you can dream up for them to do! Perhaps if you put one in your pocket you become invisible. Maybe the living room floor is covered in lava but you need to save your toy that is across the room from you! Tossing down a magic bean bag might make the lava not hurt you. Need to fly somewhere? Grab a magic bean bag! 🙂 Bean bags are great for imaginary fun.
4.) Bean Bag Hunt – Don’t all kids love to have an Easter Egg Hunt? But Easter comes only once a year. So let’s have a bean bag hunt! Kids love to look for hidden things and if your kids are like ours, you may have to hide the bean bags several times! There are always lots of cool hiding places you can find once you start looking. Like in the corner of a chair…
On the piano…
Even on the treadmill! (Treadmills need to be used for something besides torture, right?!)
5.) Bean Bag Relays – There are so many fun ways to use bean bags for relay races! Let’s talk about a couple ideas…line the kids up in a single file row, everyone facing the front. You can do this with just one team for fun or if you have enough kids for more than one team, they can race. Give the bean bag to the first person. Everyone faces in the same direction and remains facing forward for the entire relay. When the person refereeing says “GO!”, the first person in line passes the bean bag over their head to the next person in line while holding it with both hands…and each person passes it to the person behind them in the same manner. When it reaches the last person, they take it over their head and let it fall to the floor behind them. The first team to do so is declared the winner. Now, you can make this harder if you want to by making the last person put the bean bag back into the hands of the person in front of them and it continues on up the line until the bean bag is once again in the hands of the first person in line. Another variation is instead of passing the bean bag over their head, the first person turns to their LEFT to pass it to the next person, then the second person turns to their RIGHT to pass it and it alternates on down the line…left, right, left, right. You can also have the last person in line yell “TURN!” when they get the bean bag and then pass it back up the line again. If the last person receives the bean bag from the left, then when everyone turns around, the last person (now the front of the line) must start passing the bean bag in the opposite way they received it…in this case, to the right. It adds a bit of confusion trying to hurry but also pass the bean bag the right way.
6.) Another kind of Bean Bag Relay – Start again by making a team or two depending on how many kids are present. Line everyone up in a single file line, facing forward. Give one bean bag to the first person in line. Decide on a body part that each person must balance the bean bag on as they hurry down to a set spot and then hurry back to their team. For instance, they can all balance the bean bag on their head…or the back of their hand, on their shoulder, etc. After they walk down to the set spot and back they pass the bean bag on to the next person in line. If someone drops the bean bag, they must stop walking until the bean bag is picked up and put back in its place. The first team done is the winner. Or you can make the game longer by making each person do another run with the bean bag in a different spot the next time.
Rusty was my model today for balancing a bean bag on your head. Haha!
7.) Bean Bag Bowling – This is just like you are probably thinking from the name. Save up a few empty water bottles to use as bowling pins. Set them up on a table or on the floor. Using 2 bean bags per person, slide the bean bag along the table or floor to try and knock down the water bottles.
Yay! It’s a spare! 😉
8.) Bean Bag Table Soccer – This one is really simple. You can decide how many bean bags to play with but the idea is to slide your bean bags across the table and have them stop with just part of them hanging over the edge. You get 1 point for each bean bag that reaches the edge of the table but no points if it falls off. So in the picture below, the turquoise bean bag and the yellowish green bean bag each score 1 point but the other 3 bean bags don’t get any points. First person to 10 points wins!
9.) Bean Bag Tic Tac Toe – This is another game that is pretty self-explanatory if you know how to play Tic Tac Toe. If you don’t know, the game is played on a grid using X’s and O’s and players take turns placing their marker in the grid. The first person to get 3 in a row is the winner. So for playing with bean bags, you need 5 bags each of 2 different colors or shapes so you know which bean bag belongs to which player. You can use anything that makes a straight line to form the grid. Like 4 yardsticks…which I don’t have so I used masking tape strips on our rug. (No, it didn’t leave any stickiness behind.) Have the kids stand equal distances from the grid and they must toss their bean bag and try to get it to land in the square of their choosing. First to get 3 in a row is the winner.
10.) Just let them play – Our last but not least suggestion today is to just hand the bean bags over to the kids and let them decide how to play with them. I’m sure they will come up with things to do that you and I haven’t even thought of yet. I do know that bean bags make great mountains for other toys. 😉
I hope you enjoyed these ideas and that you have a WONDERFUL time playing with your kids with bean bags! I’d love to hear from you with more ideas of what you and your kids thought up to do with bean bags. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
The Kids Niche 