In her post, Put play in a bag (and see what comes out), Michele describes yet another Junkyard Sports-like approach to blending creativity, problem-solving and repurposing with games.
The idea: take a bunch of junk, a set of simple rules, and put them in a bag.
The rules:
- All items must be used. (2 cones, 4 bean bags, 1 piece of chalk, 1 ball, 1 small hourglass timer)
- Game must be played outdoors.
- You need to create a name for your game.
- Have fun family time!
Just for conceptual fun, think of a game or several you could make out using all this junk.
Michele gives us the titles of 4 of the games her family created:
- Le Obstacle Course (8 year old)
- The Bean Sprout (5 year old)
- Le Challenge (Dad)
- Bullseye Bowling (Mom)
The Junkyard Sports method is a little different. We start with a bunch of junk, an environment and collection of players, and we also include the sport that people are to try to create. There’s an implicit rule to use as much of the junk as possible, but we don’t make a big thing out of it. Turns out that there are as many ways to solve this challenge as there are to create an entirely new game. The Junkyard Sports advantage: since you already know what game you want to create, it’s a bit easier for most people, by adapting the sport to the particular collection of junk, environment and players, to arrive at a well-structured game that is worth playing again and again.
On the other hand, the junk bag idea seems like it could lead to just as much fun.