Monday Makery - Bean Bag Toss

I love this game quite simply because it’s simple. Children of all ages love to play it and because there are so many different ways to play and different ways to use the beanbags it can give hours of fun for little children.

Children can play traditional aiming games; trying to accurately throw the beanbags into a hole in a box as we've made here. Playing a game of trying to knock down a group of bears and soldiers, using them as pillows and beds for favourite cuddlies, stacking them into towers and use them in counting games. Another great thing about this is that they are so easily taken with you in the park or in the garden. Perhaps the best thing of all is that they are very easy to make.

You'll need:

• fabric
• scissors
• needle and thread or a sewing machine if you have one
• dried beans, lentils or munga beans
• kitchen scales

Here's how:

1. Cut your fabric into 6 inch squares.
2. Take two of the squares and face together right side to right side.
3. Sew the two sides together leaving a little over an inch gap so that you can fill the bags later.
4. Turn the bag inside out. You can use the point of a pencil or a chopstick to push out the corners. 
5. Fill the bean bag with your dried beans. I used 10oz but you can use less or more if you feel you need to. I didn't have a funnel to fill the bags so I used a rolled up piece of paper as a makeshift funnel and it did the job just fine.
6. Once the bag is full you're ready to sew together the last little inch gap. All done!

I made six in total so there were 3 bags for each player.

We also made some animals from cardboard boxes as part of a game; aiming at the animals and trying to get our beanbags to land inside.

My last box was commandeered for a post box and so the girls set about painting it bright red and marking out the slot for the letters. I cut a hole in the back, marking out three sides to make a flap so that the 'post' could be collected.

We made another game using the post-box and a list of words that Sessi is currently learning to read. I cut out the various words and attached a paper clip to each one. Then using a fishing rod with a magnet attached we played our own version of go fish. We fished for a word and tried to read it if we could read the word we kept it in our pile and if we couldn't the word was put back into the mix and the player had to shout 'go fish!'. The player with the most cards wins.

Oona will post just about everything in the post-box and I know when it’s emptied I'll find some interesting things in there!

I also upcylced some milk cartons and turned them into skittles. I poured a little of our left over dried beans and lentils into each carton after giving them a good rinse and letting them dry. I then painted them with the left over paint from our animal boxes and assigned each one a number.
The girls used the bean bags to try and bowl them down. We had a hard time teaching Oona the rules who insisted she stand right next to them and threw from there but it was great fun.

The girls have been inventing other games too; seeing how many bean bags they can throw into a hula hoop and scoring points for how many landed inside, balancing the bags on their heads and seeing how many they can carry before they fall down. Oona has her own little games that she has pilfered the bean bags for and has made beds for her mice and little dolls, she likes to line them up and count them, though the 4 is always missing, apparently on holiday according to Sessi! Oona will make towers with them too and I’m quite amazed how adaptable to so many games these bean bags have become!....Oh and yes they do occasionally end up in our post box too.

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We have more Monday Makery craft & recipe ideas here.

For behind the scenes photos of Sisters Guild we have the gallery of the A-Z of Sisters Guild here.