Hi. Do you like Pick Up Sticks?

Hi. Nice to see you again. I’ve been short on inspiration as of late. Parenting a strong-willed child going through the 18 month old stage pretty much takes up all of my time. I’m too spent to even think of being crafty, creative, or witty. Maren and I both have gashes on our heads right now. Violet has taken a shine to beating us with any object she can get above her head (for full head shattering painful impact.) One would think that being a second time Mom would give me some advantages. Er, no. I do know though, that I don’t like out of control kids, and without some serious guidance, Violet has the potential to be a real “handful.” She’s exciting, funny, talking a lot, and strong-willed. It’s just a lot harder for me to figure out what works for her, because NO doesn’t. She laughs and does it more, faster, harder, or with more enthusiasm. There is an old wives tail that says curly hair equals lots of fun. Fun she is alright!

I failed to take photos of the handmade gifts we made this year. I did, though, finish this with Maren for an after Christmas family game. It’s giant Pick-Up-Stix, and it was easy and cheap.

How to make Ginormous Pick-Up-Sticks

Purchase as many dowels as you’d like. I bought 22. We used 3 ft dowels, 1/4″ thick. If you’d like to save money and want shorter sticks, you could buy 11 and use the saw and cut them in half.

You’ll need the following colors of acrylic paint- red, yellow,blue, green,black.

Paint 1 dowel black

Paint 5 dowels red

Paint 5 dowels blue

Paint 6 dowels green

Paint 5 dowels yellow.

We had to do 2 coats of paint. We also did a coat of sealer for durability. Let them dry 24 hours before playing.

Then you can play!

Have your playmate hold the sticks together, stand back, and release. The object is to pick up as many sticks as you can without bumping or moving any other stick(s).

Remember, you can use the sticks you collect as a tool to lift up other sticks. When playing with preschoolers, I recommend having them lay their collected sticks in a pile away from them. Otherwise you might get poked or prodded.  You can also modify the game by playing with less sticks.

Here is the score break down if you like to play competitively. We don’t use points, it sucks too much of the fun out of it with this age group. Read: An angry kid who loses a game and has a stick in their hand. Do you want to go there? I don’t.

Black -25 points
Red -10 points
Blue -5 points
Green -2 points
Yellow 1-points

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Tags: dowels, family game, games, giant, homemade, kids, pick up sticks, pickupsticks, preschool, stix, tutorial, wooden