Active Play Creative Movement with Twister
We were gifted a new twister game a few months ago and have been enjoying it. Twister is a great game that involves colors, direction, movement, balance, turn taking, and downright fun. Our old twister game tore a few years ago and I have a couple ideas of home made versions I want to try when this one bites the dust. The problem I find with the store twister games is that they don’t stay very still on carpet or hard surfaces, and tear.
Movement Fun with the Twister Game
Since we have eight children, ranging from 16 years to 3 months, we have enough to have fun when friends aren’t available. The six in the middle played along this week. First, I had the big ones pair up with a younger siblings to help them with figuring which is left/right.
Make Your Own Twister Game
Buying a twin flat sheet from the store combined with fabric paint would create a nice soft version. I think this would still move and twist about. I also like the idea of buying clear vinyl (available at fabric stores). I would get the thickest clear vinyl they have, 2-3 yards or more if you are working with larger groups. Roll it up to store it.
This is the version I am going to try the board will stick and be more stiff. What about the colors? Here you can get super creative by taping colored shapes to the bottom. Instead of just circles this would allow more teaching opportunities, and you can change them out. Also, it would be fun to create holiday themed twister boards! I will take some pictures when we do this ourselves.
My daughter found some fun Messy Twister games on Pinterest. These would be a perfect summer time activity combined with water play to clean up.
Create your own spinner for your custom board directions can be found here. You could also create dice for calling out the movements.
Twister, Bean Bags, and Music
Another activity is to use bean bags for color recognition and throwing skills. Another advantage to creating your own board and spinner would be to have more colors to play with.
Music is always nice, but twister can get noisy with out. I think it would be a fun challenge to add a music challenge. Play some music and make part of the challenge to move as the music calls. EDM = robotic moves, classical piano = soft moves. What would you do?
