Marshmallow toss

What it is: A game invented by my very own mother for our family nights when I was growing up. It’s a simple tossing game (kind of like a bean bag toss) you can set up with things you have around the house. Good for little kids, but can be adapted for older kids, too.

Best for: A group of 3 to 6.

What you need: First, you need a metal muffin tin. If you have an old one that you wouldn’t mind sacrificing, that would be best. (If not, that’s okay, too.) Then you’ll need a bag of marshmallows, not the mini kind. It’s also helpful to have some way of marking a boundary on the floor (masking tape works well) and a way to keep score (like pen and paper). Finally, if you have some sticky labels, like the small neon circle kinds, and a black Sharpie, you’ll be set.

How to play: The game is really simple: players take turns tossing marshmallows towards the muffin tin, scoring points based on where the marshmallow lands.

To set up the game, you’ll want to assign a point value to each row or each hole in your muffin tin. That might look like this:

 Or like this:

Whatever you want. You can use the sticky labels to assign the point values or, if you don’t want to put stickers on your muffin tin, just write down or remember which points correspond to each row (shoot, you could print out one of those pictures right above) or just make sure the stickers will come off.

Then set the muffin tin up, either flat on the floor or propped up slightly on a book or something, and mark a line on the floor a few feet away. The distance of the line will depend on the age/skill of your players. In my family, where players ranged from my parents to my youngest sister not yet in Kindergarten, we had a few lines for varying ages.

Then to play, just have your players take turns tossing the marshmallow towards the muffin tin. If a marshmallow lands in a hole and stays there, that player gets that number of points. Each player might get three marshmallow tosses, and you can cycle through your players as many times as you want. The player with the most points in the end wins and gets to eat all the remaining marshmallows, mua ha ha! Or, just…win. Either way. 😉

Variations: It’s a really simple game, but you could add some of your own rules if you wanted to make it more exciting. For example, you could give some of the muffin holes negative point values for added variability.