I have a jar with all sorts of marbles from my days of playing marbles in France. We use them for all sorts of things. We play marbles (the French and the American way), mix them with play dough, and put them in our sensory table (the weight and smoothness of marbles makes for a great sensory experience). Sometimes we use them to track our way to family rewards.
Rainy Day Fun with Marbles
Marbles are also great for free play! The kids divide them up, sort them, and arrange them in different patterns. This type of free play is a great way for kids to work on the observational skills that both scientists and artists use on a daily basis! Sometimes more than one child will want a particular marble (like the gigantic shooter marble in the photo below), and this gives them an opportunity to work on negotiation and compromise. All of the marbles go in time out if there is conflict, so the kids have gotten really good at working issues like this out on their own!
Do your kids play with marbles? How do they use them? Did you play with marbles as a kid?
The Educators’ Spin On It, Boy Mama Teacher Mama, Mama Smiles,Planet Smarty Pants, Relentlessly Fun Deceptively Educational, This Reading Mama
There were lots of really great ideas in last week’s after school activities linky! Here were some of my favorites:
- Rope People from An idea on Tuesday
- Cookie Delivery Rube Goldberg Machine from Inspiration Laboratories
- USA Cookie Map from Ducks ‘n a Row
- Teach the Continents by Making a Globe from Gift of Curiosity
- Math Tic Tac Toe from Sparkling Buds
Do you have a post to share this week? The after school linky is a space for you to share crafts and activities for children aged 5-12 years old. My fellow cohosts and I pick our favorites to feature each week, and we may also pin your post to our popular After School Activities board on Pinterest, or some of our personal boards!
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
I remember playing marbles at school growing up. It was just a certain season that we were allowed to bring them in. I loved them; so beautiful! But my kids have not played with marbles and don’t seem interested. Such a shame!
They are missing out!
While I have a big huge jar of marbles, we don’t really get them out because my kids are not the best at putting them away afterwards…. Maybe I should try working on them with that.
Good luck!
I love the smoothness and color of marbles. I don’t always know what to do with them, but I do like them!
They are pretty!
I think I do a lot more finding marbles all over the house while cleaning than my kids do playing with them, lol, but I still love them for all the reasons you mentioned :-)
Haha that is a hazard of playing with marbles.
My sister and I played marbles (without any idea what the real rules were!) on the green linoleum inside the front door of the house we grew up in. It was a smooth yet contained surface perfect for such games. Where do you recommend I have my kids try marbles at our house? The former owner left a jar of them for us, but brick paving seems too rough, and I don’t think it’s prudent to let them roll all over our wood floors. How big would a shallow cardboard box need to be to work as a smooth yet contained area? Or do you have another idea for a good play surface?
What if you used wooden blocks (or, better really) DUPLO bricks to build a square frame to contain them on your wood floor? The rough brick paving would work well for the tic et tac game I played in France.
Building an enclosure with DUPLO is a fantastic idea, MaryAnne!!! And we will have to try tic et tac.
Thank you so much for these great ideas. I do wish I still received your comment replies in my email like I used to!
I hadn’t realized that that didn’t work any more – thanks for letting me know! I will see if I can fix it…
I immediately thought of a scene from the movie “Hook” – about an old guy who lost him marbles. We have some marbles, and they often get mixed into Playmobil and Lego scenarios, but daughter doesn’t play much with marbles themselves…
Lol now that you mention it I remember that scene! I think you need a built-in playmate for marbles to be entertaining.
My mom has a jar full of marbles she dug up from my paternal grandparents flower gardens. Apparently, when my dad was in grade school, he would hide the marbles he won at school in the flower gardens, so his parents wouldn’t know he’d been “gambling”. I really wanted to swipe the jar, while we were there visiting, But, somehow that didn’t seem right either :)
What a cool story! This is the first I have ever heard of marbles being considered a “gambling” game, too!
I love marbles, and N likes looking at his (and my childhood ones I’ve passed on to him), but he doesn’t do much more than that with them. We have recently been to a House of Marbles museum in Devon, UK which was brilliant fun. Totally different to what I expected, with a great outdoor marble based play area. (Hope you don’t mind the link http://bubbablueandme.com/2015/04/fun-and-games-at-house-of-marbles/)
That museum looks incredible! Thanks for sharing the link!