Tipping Tiger Toilet Paper Tube Craft for Family Game Night

We found the basic idea for this game/craft in the book, Gizmos & Gadgets Creating Science Contraptions That Work (& Knowing Why), by Jill Frankel Hauser. We dolled ours up a bit with a printout of a template for a tiger toilet paper tube craft from DLTK-Kids (a site that all parents of preschoolers should visit). It's a craft, that becomes a game, or a science project, or a math activity. And best of all, it's fun for a wide range of ages.

If you want to make one, you'll need:

• A toilet paper tube


• Paper, or markers, to decorate it with


• A plastic lid from a coffee can


• A pencil, wood dowel, chop stick, or skewer


• A stapler


• Scissors


• Glue


• A pretty good number of plastic bread bag fasteners


• A die, or spinner, for playing the game


• And possibly, the cap from a milk jug
  

Start by decorating the toilet paper tube. This is a good job for younger children.

Cut the coffee can lid exactly in half. We obviously eyeballed it, but it would probably be better to take a little time, and measure, to get two equal halves.

Staple the two halves of the lid to either side of the bottom of the toilet paper tube, so they act as rockers. This step is a bit tricky, even slightly older children might need help.

Push your pencil, or wood dowel, or whatever your using, through the toilet paper tube, about where arms should go. And, your ready to play.

To play as a multi player game, you will need a die, or spinner. Each player rolls the die, and puts the number of bread fasteners onto the arms of the tube (or tiger in our case), as indicated on the die. Fasteners can be placed on either, or both, sides of the tube. The object of the game, is to place the fasteners onto the arms, without upsetting the balance of the tube to the point where all the fasteners are dumped off of one side.

To play as a single player, start by putting on two fasteners at a time, then three at a time, then four, to see how high you can get before losing the load.

We also glued a milk cap into the bottom of our tube, so that when we were done playing, we could store all the bread fasteners in the tube until next time. It's so nice to have them out of my silverware drawer!

It's great to be a homeschooler.