Tin can bowling

My eldest two children love 10-pin bowling. I do, too! However, it’s not exactly a cheap activity to do regularly, so a couple of months ago, we made this tin can bowling set after seeing the idea in a magazine.

It might not have all the atmosphere and excitement of an actual bowling alley, but we had great fun playing with them in the garden this afternoon.

My children also enjoyed helping to make them. It’s easy to do – and I say that as someone who is not very good at arts and crafts at all.

You will need:

* 10 or so tin cans empty, washed and with the lids fully removed (the ring-pull cans are better as you are less likely to be left with jagged edges than if you use a tin opener).

* Wrapping paper or a selection of your children’s art work

* Scissors

* Glue

* Tennis or cricket balls

To make:

Peel off the label from one of the cans, measure it, cut your wrapping paper to the same size, put craft glue along the back of the paper, wrap it around the can and stick it down.

It looks better if you have the base of the can at the top, and also make sure to closely supervise small hands, as the opened edges of the cans can be sharp.

It might sound obvious, but it helps to have tin cans of the same size so that they stack well, or at least to have a few of the same size so that your rows contain equal sized tins.

To play, stack your tins in a pyramid formation, take turns bowling the ball and keep score to see who wins.

Okay, so it might not have all the atmosphere as proper bowling, but it’s a fun game to play in the garden or at birthday parties.

We had some wrapping paper left over, so we transformed an empty nappy box into somewhere to keep our bowling set.

Let me know if you give this a go, either in the comments below, on the Cardiff Mummy Says Facebook page or by tweeting me on @cardiffmummy

If you like this, you might also like my post Kids summer to-do list: 50 simple things to enjoy with your children this summer  or this one on 10 traditional arts and crafts activities to do with your child before they start school.