Backyard Bowling

 

Today's Snack: Let's go Veggie Bowling! Ask an adult for help if you need to, but the idea is to cut one end of 10 baby carrots straight so that they stand straight up. Set them up on a clean kitchen counter like a bowling alley - one carrot front and center, with two carrots flanking it, and then a row of three, and finally, in the back row, four carrots, evenly spaced. Now take a round, hard apple and remove the stem if you need to. Then "bowl" and see how many carrots you can knock down. After you've played a few "frames," and if you're hungry enough, you can eat any "pins" you knock down after you've washed them under running water, and when they're all gone, go ahead and wash and eat your "bowling ball."

 

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Supplies:

10 empty cardboard milk or juice cartons

OR 10 empty water bottles (16.9-oz. or so)

Softball or baseball

 

Option for autumn:

10 butternut squash

One round pumpkin, stem cut off

 

The game of bowling has been around for thousands of years. Artifacts from this game have been found in Egyptian tombs dating as far back as 5300 B.C.

 

Bowling stakes have been high in the past: bowling was used in the Middle Ages to establish someone's guilt or innocence in a criminal matter. The accused person bowled a ball at one pin about 60 feet away. If it knocked over the pin, the accused was considered innocent: if not the person was judged guilty.  See how YOUR nerves would take it - measure 60 feet on a flat surface such as a driveway, and put one of the milk cartons or water bottles at one end, and "bowl" a softball toward it. Will you go free, or will you go behind bars?

 

The game of bowling came to the United States with the early Dutch settlers in New York. The shape of the pins has changed, as well as the ball and the distance of the lane, but the game is basically the same.

 

To play backyard bowling, you can use empty milk or juice cartons as pins. Empty liter bottles work well too. Line up the cartons or bottles in 1-2-3-4 bowling order several feet away.  Mark a starting line with masking tape and use a small ball to knock those pins down. Keep score!

 

In the fall, it's fun to use 10 butternut squash as the "pins" and roll a big pumpkin toward them across some grass. At the end of the game, you can share the squash with neighbors and friends - if it isn't squashed - because it makes a very healthy and tasty soup or side dish.

 

-- Contributed by Cynthia Jernstrom, a longtime educator

 

 

© 2008