The Country Boy helps lead our church youth group on Friday nights. Last week he was in charge of the activity and so he supersized one of the things he enjoyed doing as a kid: making marble chases.
When I was a kid we used to collect toilet rolls etc and make a small ramp to run our marbles down. CB supersized his idea by collecting large cardboard rolls, giant pvc pipes (good old council clean up) and other large tubes, and getting the youth group to build huge marble runs strung from the roof etc.
Since we had all these pipes sitting in our garage, the girls used some of them create their own giant marble run around the backyard. They used the slippery dip and other outdoor things to rest their pipes on. CB helped with some of the assembling and logistics as the girls had a bit of trouble managing the large tubes.
The girls have really enjoyed it. They have rearranged the design several times. Hannah has drawn up charts and counted which marble goes fastest, or most often. Meg spent an hour on Monday seeing if she could get all the marbles down at once. Even Toby enjoyed putting a marble down the hole (though on reflection, teaching him to put toys into holes may not have been our best parenting moment).
We have left it set up in the yard for a few days and the kids regularly go back to it for another go, or to make it “even better”. If you want a new activity for a couple of days, try a marble run!
What fun things have you done with your kids? Share your ideas below!
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