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Throughout the year we'll hear from eight bloggers as they share about their family's time in the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience® and how it inspires them to explore these sports back at home.
This post was written by Children's Museum Blog Ambassador Jessica Nunemaker. Follow her posts on the blog or follow her at Little Indiana on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
The Riley Children's Health Sports Legends Experience is so packed with things to see and do, it keeps kids (and adults) entertained. But after you get home and recover from the jumping and kicking and running, the active, imaginative fun doesn’t need to stop.
Here There Be Ninja
We've had a ninja in our home for a long time now. When other kids wanted to be police officers or teachers, our son wanted to be a ninja. It also didn’t matter if we were traveling Indiana or hanging out at home, he was (and is) all about the ninja. Now that he's older, he's tossing around the idea of being a veterinarian during the day and a ninja at night. Apparently “workaholic” is also in his future.
Kidding aside, I have the perfect rainy-day activity for you. It isn’t messy, is easy to put together, and hardly costs a thing. You might even have the supplies you need already on-hand. Sounds perfect, right? Oh, it is. Best of all, your kids will play and invent new games to go along with it. You'll likely get tired of seeing the thing before they get done with it. What is “it?”
...A laser beam-laden ninja training course!
Ninja Training Course
All it takes to build this ninja training course are streamers, a little tape, a long narrow space (like a hallway), and plenty of imagination. Let’s get started.
- Grab your streamers. Red makes for excellent giant laser beams but, as you can see, any color is fine.
- Tape the streamers across your hallway in different heights. You don’t need to go much above waist-high here, so you can focus on the lower portion of your hallway. You want to prevent anyone walking or jumping over the streamers so look at your work from all angles.
- Start taping. Stretch the crepe paper in long, unending streams or rip off short snippets. Mix it up. This way, you can vary the obstacle, and give your ninjas a sense of satisfaction when they complete the course without getting hit by lasers.
- Work from one end to the other, ensuring you have an escape route. Nobody puts Baby in a corner. You shouldn’t be there either.
- Make sure it's tricky enough that someone little can’t slide underneath it all. That’s where those different length streamers come in handy.
Ninja Style
We like to make a ninja training course as a (now expected) birthday morning surprise but it also makes a great unexpected “just because” activity. Encourage your kids to reposition streamers on their own. Let them tweak it to fit whatever scenarios their little minds cook up. Then? Prepare to hear plenty of giggles.
