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How to Make Easy Games

Making easy games for children is not only fun but very easy and can cost you next to nothing, if anything at all. Here's a great game that you and even little guys like preschoolers can begin one rainy day as a simple crafts project.
Save the game playing for another nasty day, and make up variations as you go along. It's also a fun toy that a child can entertain herself alone with for hours. This is a great way to recycle things like empty boxes, junk mail and other used paper.

Things You'll Need

Pieces of used paper Crayons or permanent markers Large paper clips Scissors Empty box, any size String Sticks, small dowel rods, or drinking straws Tape Small magnets Plastic cups Pennies

Instructions

- 1
  Ask your children to color both sides of several sheets of used paper, like junk mail, with green and blue crayons or markers. Tear the sheets into 2- to 3-inch strips, and then tear the strips into little squares and rectangles. Show them how to wad each little piece of colored paper up. Put them aside to soon become the water for the game.
- 2
  Draw creatures on separate sheets of used paper. Make some funny, simple figures of fish, octopi, crabs, squid, starfish and lobsters. Draw some frogs and even some eels, too, and make your drawings roughly about 2 to 3 inches square. Enjoy their giggles as the kids color and decorate the underwater menagerie.
- 3
  Cut the decorated critters out with scissors. Use a heavy permanent marker to write a numeral between one and five on the back of each creature. The numeral designates the number of points each particular item will score when playing the game. Affix a large paper clip to each of them.
- 4
  Arrange all of the creatures decorated side up in a single layer inside the bottom of a box. Pile the wads of colored paper on top of them so that they're completely covered with "water."
- 5
  Make a fishing rod for each child by tying a 12- to 24-inch piece of string to the end of a stick, dowel rod or plastic drinking straw. Secure it with a piece of tape. Tie a magnet to the end of each string.
- 6
  Give each child a plastic cup to hold his or her catch in. Show the kids how to fish for creatures by lowering the magnets into the water with the fishing rods. If they're old enough, ask them to take turns. It's OK to swish the magnets around in the water in search of a creature to snag as the supply becomes depleted.
- 7
  Tally up the points when all the creatures have been caught. Add up the numerals written on them. Award a penny per point, and deposit the prizes in the plastic cups. This completes round one. Play as many rounds as the kids want, or conclude it at a set number of points.

Kids Games