Balls
Bowling
Save 6 to 10 recycled plastic water bottles for the pins. Add some dried pasta or peas to weigh them down. If you haven’t got plastic bottles you could use empty kitchen roll tubes.
Put numbers on them or ask your child to draw pictures and stick them on to the plastic bottles.
Ask your child to count them as they place them into position.
Stand a few feet back from the bottles and gently roll a ball towards them. See how many you can knock down. Practice counting the pins that fall and then ask your child how many are left standing. You could keep a score card to see who knocks the most down.
Get rid of the balls
Place a sheet over two chairs as a barrier or mark out a line with masking tape. If playing outside, you could use chalk and draw 2 lines.
Use any soft balls that you have. If you haven’t got any soft balls, use rolled up socks or scrunch up paper into ball shapes.
The object of the game is to get all your balls on the other player’s side (not throw them at the other player).
You could set a timer or count to 30. Each player starts to throw their balls over to the other person’s side. If you run out of balls pick up the ones that have landed on your side and throw them back to the other player's side.
When the time is up, stop throwing the balls and then count how many are on each side. The one with the fewest balls on their side is the winner!
Ping pong
For this activity, you will need some lightweight cups. For example paper or plastic cups. You will also need some ping pong balls or small balls that will fit into the cups.
First tape several cups to the edge of a table with the top of the cup being in line with the tabletop. About 5 to 6 cups, if the table is big enough.
At the opposite end of the table to the cups, ask your child to roll a ping pong ball along the tabletop to try to land the ball into a cup.
You could put numbers on the cups and then add up the scores. Play this game together by putting cups at both ends of the table and then both try to roll or bounce your ping pong balls across to the other person’s cups.
Now count up the points!
A different variation to try - make two zig zag tracks (you could use play-dough to make them) across the table and blow the ball in-between them to the other side of the table and into the cups.
Through the hoop
Hold up a hula-hoop and encourage your child to throw the ball through the hoop.
Start with the hoop low down on the ground and then move it up higher to make it more challenging.
Let your child start close to the hoop. As they become more confident at throwing it through, ask them to move a bit further away. See how far they can move away and still get the ball through the hoop. You could measure the distance.
Make it a family challenge. See who can get the ball through the hoop from the furthest distance. Try it with different size balls.
You could place the hoop(s) on the ground and ask your child to try to bounce a ball in and out of the hoop(s).
For babies or younger children, hold the hoop close to them and encourage them to roll the ball through the hoop. They may like to crawl through the hoop themselves!
Colour ball toss
Place several boxes on the floor. You could use baskets/ buckets/ wastepaper bins/ bowls. Put a different colour label on each container.
Have matching coloured balls (you could use ball pool balls if you have them). If you haven’t got any coloured balls you could scrunch up coloured paper into ball shapes.
Ask your child to throw the balls into the matching coloured containers. Start by standing quite near to the containers so that your child can throw them in.
As your child gets more confident hitting the targets, start to make it a bit more challenging, by moving a bit further away from the containers and try again. Try this yourself and see if you can got them all in.