Spitball Mancala

        Although "we did school today!" many times since the last time I posted on here, we also did a lot of other things, the most time consuming of which was selling our house and moving temporarily across the country for several months. 

         Now we find ourselves in sunny San Diego, far from the distractions of home, cranking out schoolwork like a boss, and then trying to entertain ourselves.  I delight in traveling light and using whatever I have on hand to make our toys and games (which I then discard when we pack up again.)  And so I bring to you....Spitball Mancala.  It's not really spitballs; I've never made a spitball in my life!  But it is rolled up wads of paper, solidified by soaking and then drying in the oven.  I've never been accused of doing things the easy way, so in keeping with my "let's make this 25 steps more complicated than it has to be" personality, I also painted them with nail polish (since I know I won't be using that all up before I go home!)  That was a gory looking business! 

          Of course, you can play mancala with holes in the ground, but we don't have ground; you can play with circles on a paper, but it's somewhat less convenient.  We had an 18 count egg carton.  Perfect!

         Instead of spitballs, you could use pennies; you could use beans; you could use marbles; you could use any tiny thing that you have a handful of, but we didn't have any, except tiny legos, which I thought of later. 

        "What a cool project," I thought to myself, "I can't wait to post this."  But the fact is, my kids didn't even finish the first game before it was shelved and they started begging for a show again.  Blah...better luck next time, Mumma.