Rack ‘em up! This Saturday is the second Saturday of August, which means it is none other than National Bowling Day! It’s pretty safe to say that basically everyone loves bowling, and there’s no better way to celebrate National Bowling Day than getting ready to roll with the ones you love! Wondering how this day even came about? Here’s a little history of National Bowling day from National Day Calendar:
“The Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America, Inc. sponsored the first National Bowling Day in association with the General Cigar Company and NBC-TV in 1956. It was the accumulation of hundreds of bowling tournaments in 48 states attracting millions of bowlers across the country raising money for the American Red Cross. The televised Final Bowl Off was held on National Bowling Day on October 14, 1956, in Macon County, Illinois and featured bowling stars Bill Lilian and Anita Cantaline of Detroit.
The event was never repeated, but National Bowling Day traditions have started once more. Continuing in the same spirit as the 1956 event, the modern era National Bowling Day takes care of others while taking down those pins. One example is the Million Pin Challenge. Donations will help provide half a million meals to Feeding America to fight domestic hunger.”
Bowling really is the perfect excuse to have some good old fashioned fun any time with friends and family, so lace up your bowling shoes and get ready for a super fun DIY that is sure to be right up your alley!
Institutional 9′ Tunnel
The Pacific Play Tents Institutional 9-ft. Tunnel is excellent fun for developing cooperative play! Also great for muscle development, it helps to stimulate the imagination for creative playtime. You can even incorporate it into your bowling game, but when not in use for bowling, this innovative design incorporates our new “padded interior” system for more comfortable playtime on those little knees and arms. It also wipes clean with a damp cloth, so you can take it outdoors just as easily! Connect it to your favorite tent to create a maze of fun!
DIY Bowling Pins and Bowling Ball
This week, we are making DIY Bowling Pins and Bowling Ball so that you don’t even need to leave the house to celebrate National Bowling Day!
What you need
- 6 water bottles, filled about 3/4 of the way full
- If they are completely full they become to top heavy!
- When picking your water bottles, try to find ones that have the shape of bowling pins.
- Red duct tape 3/4 inch thick
- Doesn’t have to be red- get creative and use whatever color you wish to use!
- White gloss spray paint
- Black gloss spray paint
- 7″ ball
- We used a basketball!
- White paper
- Scissors or an Exacto knife
How you make them
Pins
- Grab your six bottle and make sure they are filled up only 3/4’s of the way, then tighten the cap tight so you don’t have water leakage later.
- Start spray painting the bottle white!
- You will need to give these a couple of coats, making sure you get the bottom and the tops too.
- This is a bit of a process letting the coats dry in between, so allow yourself plenty of time!
- Once your 6 pins are completely coated with white gloss paint and dry, you are ready to add your red stripes.
- We just eyeballed, but you could always lightly add pencil marks to help you guide where the tape should be going if your little ones are helping.
- Make sure to add strips of duct tape to each pin.
Ball
- Spray paint the basketball black
- We spray painted the basketball black in a box, while rolling it around in the box making sure every inch is covered.
- Once fully covered in black spray paint, leave it to dry for a couple of hours.
- Once fully dry, cut a hole in the paper with your scissors or Exacto knife for the bowling ball holes and use that as a guide to spray through the holes.
- We painted three holes exactly the way it looks on a bowling ball, even though the kids just grab it with their hands!
Games
Now that you’ve got your DIY Bowling Ball and Pins, it’s time to play some games! There are so many ways to play with bowling balls and pins other than traditional, classing bowling, so keep reading below for a few of our favorites that we came across!
Tunnel Bowling
- Set up your Institutional Tunnel with the pins all at one end
- Stand at the other end and roll your ball through to the other side
- See how many pins you can knock down without moving the tunnel!
- For an even bigger challenge, do it blindfolded or standing over the tunnel so that you can’t see where the ball is going!
Funky Bowl
- Play this game just like classic, regular bowling
- The difference is every frame call out a new pose, such as: one foot, left hand, right hand, eyes closed, backwards, Granny style, and whatever else you can think of!
- Keep some extra paper on hand to keep track of who can successfully bowl with all the different poses and add those points to the final bowling score!
Bowling Bingo
- Split into at least two teams
- Each team gets a bingo card with things in their squares such as strike, spare, split, head pin only, gutter, 15, 10, 13, 12, 11, 10, 8, 7, 5, 3, 2, etc.
- The object of the game is to work to fill your bingo card, not to get the highest score
- The team who can complete a row first, wins!
- You can make it even more challenging by doing a blackout rather than a row – whoever finishes the whole board first wins!
Let us know!
How are you celebrating National Bowling Day this year? Do you have any more fun bowling games to play, or did you create this DIY? Let us know in the comments!