It’s a jungle out there, but we bet you can safely navigate your bouncy ball up ramps, over bridges, past drinking straw obstacles, and through pipe cleaner wickets to the goal!
We recommend reading The Zabajaba Jungle by William Steig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987). In a dreamy, dangerous journey through the Zabajaba jungle, young Leonard and his trusty bolo encounter a number of jungle creatures and treacherous obstacles. A Steig classic.
You’ll need:
- 1 copy paper box lid
- Construction paper
- Drinking straws
- Green pipe cleaners
- Paper cups
- Paper bowl
- Poster board or tagboard
- Scissors, tape and/or glue for construction
- Hot glue (optional)
Our jungle game is a copy paper box lid with as many (or as few) obstacles for you to navigate a ball through. We used bouncy balls – I bought a 6-pack for $1 at our local dollar store. Here’s our basic jungle:
As you can see, we had a paper bowl tunnel, a bumpy drinking straw “path,” green pipe cleaners acting as vine wickets, and a blue construction paper river. We used tagboard to make a bridge, as well as a ramp and an elevated pathway. At the bottom of the box lid are the “goals”…paper cup halves cut down to various heights. Want to fill things out a little? Add construction paper foliage:
You can also add fabric (or construction paper) flowers for some pops of color!
To play, drop a bouncy ball in anywhere, then navigate through the obstacles and foliage by tilting and turning your box top. The ball goes in a cup, you win! Bonus fun – use multiple balls at once, or play with one kid at each end of the box top!
Swoosh down the plastic table slopes in your magnificent snow tube, then grab a delicious cup of hot chocolate (enhanced with chocolate scratch-and-sniff stickers) at the sweetest little snow station in the universe – the Cocoa Chalet!
Snow tubes first! Cut the bottom off a tissue box, leaving 1″ sides on the box. Cut a circular tube shape out of tagboard or poster board. Decorate it, then hot glue (or tape) it to the top of the box. Next, flip the snow tube box over and glue two mini craft stick runners to the bottom – this will allow the tube to slide most effectively. Finally, hot glue (or tape) a large plastic button to the inside bottom of the box. This provides the weight that will send your tube zipping down the hill rather than slow-poking to a halt.
The tube rider is a toilet paper tube decorated with construction paper and markers. We added a felt scarf and a pair of mini pom-pom earmuffs as well. Did you recognize the red-cloaked rider on the right? That’s Little Red Skating Hood from this 
Your snow tubes are done, now for the slope! These were two, 6′ plastic tables we secured on stools. We’ve done exactly the same thing for this 
We took four, 60″ pieces of PVC pipe, and speared wads of 
Here’s the back of the chalet. As you can see, the whole thing is attached to a cake pad base. Oh, and the chimney is a bubble tea straw.
The hot chocolate was a little piece of brown construction paper curled into a 1oz plastic sample cup. I topped it off with some poly fill whipped cream, then added a chocolate scratch-and-sniff sticker so the cup would exude a chocolatey bouquet.
Hey! Do you want to see the most amazing hot chocolate in the world that I consume far too much of? Right here, my friend. Right 
Lose a tooth? No problem! Our magnetic Tooth Finder 2000 will locate your missing teeth in a jiffy! We also added a little alphabetical deduction game to the mix, as well as a magnetic tooth fairy wand variation.
Cut several teeth from card stock, then tape paperclips to the back. Wave the machine’s wand over the tooth, and it will magnetically connect! We came up with a spelling game as well. To play, write different letters on the teeth, then see if kids can can pick out a particular word or their name from the pile.
If you’d like to skip the tooth finding machine and go even simpler, cut a star out of card stock, decorate it with markers, then tape it to a drinking straw. Tape or hot glue a mini button magnet to the back of the star and you have your very own magnetic tooth fairy wand!