Meet season is gearing up, which means practices can be long and tiring. It's important to give yourself a much-deserved break and find some ways to have a little fun between those important practices! Today, we're sharing some creative ideas for fun games you can play at home with gymnastics friends or family. You could even adapt some of these to play them in the gym!
Scrunchie Darts!
With every Snowflake Designs leotard comes a scrunchie, and these scrunchies are perfect for playing games with as well as tying up your hair during gym practice. To play Scrunchie Darts, simply create some targets out of paper to put on the floor or to hang on the wall. Be creative when designing your targets! If you wish, put the targets in different spots, higher and lower or closer and further, and make the ones harder to hit worth more points! You can either throw or launch the scrunchies at the targets, just like you would with a rubber band wrapped around your fingers. Once you get the hang of it, try hitting the targets with your eyes closed, using your feet to launch the scrunchie, or play while doing handstands, cartwheels, and other gymnastics tricks!
Coaches, take this game into the gym and turn it into conditioning! Make each target an exercise or skill to perform. Each gymnast takes turns launching their scrunchie at the targets, and then the whole team performs that conditioning activity. Or, split the gymnasts into teams and make it a competition. Assign point values to each conditioning activity based on the difficulty of the exercise. Teams take turns launching their scrunchies and doing their conditioning, racking up points as they go. After a certain number of rounds, count up the points each team earned and declare a winner!
Scrunchie Bowling!
This game is very similar to Scrunchie Darts! To play, line up plastic cups, cardboard paper towel tubes, or other lightweight standing objects in any formation. Then, stand back and either throw or shoot a scrunchie at the “pins”. Tally up the points based on how many “pins” you knock down and extra points can be given for strikes and spares, just like real bowling! Once you get the hang of it, try knocking down the pins with your eyes closed, using your feet to “bowl”, or play while doing handstands, cartwheels, and other gymnastics tricks!
Grip Bag Guessing Game!
Besides holding all of your valuable items, grip bags can also be used in guessing games! To play the Grip Bag Guessing Game, have other players put something into a grip bag and close the top. Have these players give the bag to whoever is taking their turn guessing. This player has to guess what’s inside the bag only by feeling the bag, shaking the bag, or whatever else they can do without opening the bag to peek inside. If the player guesses right, they get a point! You can also give players bonus points based on the amount of time it takes for them to guess or the accuracy of their guess (like guessing the correct brand or color of the item inside). To make the game more challenging, limit the amount of time a player has to guess, or put multiple items in the grip bag!
We hope that you all enjoyed these ideas and maybe tried out some of these games! Were the games challenging and fun? What are some ideas for gymnastics-themed games that you have? Tell us in the comments below!
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