• My kids tend to get restless in the winter. When the temperatures drop into the negatives, and there isn’t even any snow to play with, they get bored. Therefore I am constantly helping them to come up with fun ways to pass the time that does not involve television or video games. Don’t get me wrong, we watch our fair share of the tube, but I encourage other things first.

    Most recently we engaged in a rousing game of ring toss. I’m not even sure if that is the correct name for the game, but that’s what we called it. We tossed some rings.

    First thing’s first. We needed a place to toss our rings onto. I used an empty wrapping paper roll that I cut into thirds. Using some packing tape I then taped the role to a paper plate so that it would stand up when placed on the floor. When I finished all three of those, I allowed my kids to paint them.

    While they were busy painting I made their rings. They were also simple. I used paper plates, and cut out the middle, leaving me a ring.

    Phew hard work.

    At this point I let my kids paint those too. Because painting is fun. My kids love it. And it allowed us to know whose ring belonged to who. Got to keep score somehow. Healthy competition is good for kids.

    Anyway, when everything was painted and dry we got to playing. We started more traditionally, having our poles set up in a line directly in front of us. Each ring was worth a certain amount of points, the closest to us the least, and the farthest from us the most. Then, as things with kids seem to do, we got crazy. Our poles were placed on furniture, on top of toys, and so on. The stakes got higher, and the laughter got louder. It has been days, and we still go back for more of our simple ring toss game made out of paper plates.