Best Ideas for Fun with Snowballs
Families Enjoy a Snow Day with Variations on the Classic Snowball
Dec 11, 2008
Snowball fights are great fun, but there are so many other creative ideas for projectile snow!
Snow Bowling
For this game, parents will need to store up ten 2-liter bottles or ten of the smaller soda bottles. To begin, the bottles are lined up in the correct triangular formation just like a set of bowling pins. Each person gets two chances to throw snowballs from a predetermined distance and see how many pins hit the ground.
Abominable Snow Balls
For this game, everyone in the family rolls a snow ball to see whose will grow the largest. When the games over, the winner’s snowball can be the bottom for an abominable snowman.
Snow Volley
For this game, the family or group divides into two teams. Each team is given half an hour to construct a wall of snow.
Teams can either make the wall by piling snow in a drift, or using rubber made tubs to pack snow into bricks and then dumping them in place.
While kids are working on the forts, parents can take a few minutes to fill several buckets with snow and mix in a bit of food coloring. The colored snow is the only snow which can be used for making snowballs during the fight.
When the forts are finished, each team tries to launch snowballs into the other team’s fort or at players who leave the protective barrier.
Why would anyone leave the fort? Because the buckets of colored snow for making snowballs are placed between the two forts of course. Brave players venturing from their fort cannot move the bucket. They can only return to their fort with as much colored snow as their mittens can carry.
A point is earned each time a snowball goes over the other team’s wall and each time a player is hit. An adult to referee and keep score is useful.
Snowball Catapulting
To play this game, families will need a Frisbee or strong plastic plate, several bunji cords, and two trees close enough to anchor the bungee cords.
Parents can punch a hole in each side of the Frisbee to hook to the cords, and then secure each free end to a tree.
Kids can put a snowball into the Frisbee, pull back, and let her fly. A few test fires can determine how close to set up a target.
In case a bungee breaks free, it’s a good idea for anyone not catapulting to remain back at a safe distance. Safety goggles for the one firing are a wise precaution.
There’s no end to the fun families can enjoy in the snow this winter. For more great ideas, parents can check out how to play two new snow games, how to make an impenetrable snow fort, and how to get artistic in the snow.
