It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Whether you are watching for the game or for the commercials, it is an annual tradition and can be important to keep the kids entertained. For me this is especially critical this year as my team – the New York Giants are playing.
As she gets older, I am trying to involve her more in the game. I’m sure it will be a fight since it isn’t a dress, but she will be wearing her new Super Bowl t-shirt that we got this week when we visited Indianapolis for the Super Bowl activities.
Every year, we do a 10×10 grid of football square. Each person selects an equal number of squares and then we randomly draw the numbers 0-9 for the rows and then the columns. Whoever has the square that corresponds to the last digits of the score at the end of each quarter wins. You can have small prizes for each quarter and a larger prize for the final score. For adults, you can turn it into a bet by having a buy-in either per square or for an equal percentage. This ensures everyone’s interest in the game (and works best when people are not as committed to a particular game outcome).
For the Super Bowl, I like to find activities for my daughter which tie into the football game. By doing an online search, I found several sites with printable materials. MakeLearningFun.com which has printables for each team. I am really liking the Paper Plate Stencil as I can have my daughter design her own helmet. Kaboose.com has some good football printables for older kids such as word searches and crosswords. PrintActivities.com has football themed coloring sheets, word searches, crosswords and more.
Small footballs can also be used in games such as catch, tossing in a bowl, hot potato, and more. In the past, I’ve resorted to a portable DVD player (or more recently an iPad).
Kids (and adults) love games like on the show Minute to Win It. They have a few games that are football themed on their website. One that seems easy to play is Split the Uprights. Hut Hut Hike seems like fun, but requires much more space to play.
I do wish the game started at 5 instead of 6:30. As it is, I think my daughter will probably be sent to bed at halftime since she has to get up early for school.
How do you keep your kids occupied while you watch the big game?
