I headed to Walmart to find things for my black out box. I immediately went to the toy aisle. I love when they have batteries on the end cap because I tend to forget to look for them, so it’s nice when they are in the aisle that I am shopping in.
-4 flashlights and extra Duracell batteries. I always buy enough flashlights so every kid can have one. Eventually I’ll put in another one when my baby gets old enough to care.
-Chocolate for Momma :). Because in time of stress, chocolate is a good answer! Of course I’ll share with everyone.
-Coloring books and crayons.
-Glow sticks because they are awesome to play with and are good for light too.
-Candy and dice to play the LCR candy game and other dice games.
-2 packs of cards because there are a ton of games you can play with the kids to keep them happy.
1) Candy LCR. This is like LCR but with candy. I made a little cheat sheet so we could use normal dice. Everyone gets 3 pieces of candy, then they roll the dice. You have to place your piece of candy according to the dice. If you roll a 1 or 2, then you give the candy to the player on the left. Roll a 3 or 4 you place the candy in the center. Roll a 5 or 6 give the candy to the player on your right. You roll as many dice that you have pieces of candy (up to 3). Play until all the candy is in center and only one player has candy left. Winner gets all the candy (we always have them share though).
A few other games that you could play with your kids with dice are:
2) Yahtzee
3) The dice game. You roll 6 dice. To begin playing, you must roll a 1 and 5 in one roll. If you don’t, you have to wait to try to on your next turn. Once you’ve rolled the 1 and 5, then the next turn you start getting points. When you roll the dice, you have to get a 1 or 5 or a three of a kind or a 1-6 straight to get points and to continue rolling, if you don’t your turn is over. This is how you score: 1’s are 100 points, 5’s are 50 and the three of a kind goes like this: 1- 1100, 2-200, 3-300, 4-400, 5-500, 6-600 and the straight is worth 1000. You roll and count up your points, after each roll you can either take your points and your turn is over, or you can roll the remaining dice (the ones that didn’t score points) and try to get more points. If you don’t roll a 1 or 5 or 3 of a kind or straight, you lose all your points and your turn is up. If all 6 dice are points, then you roll all 6 dice again. First one to 10,000 wins.
There are so many games that you can play with cards your kids. We love playing cards It’s easy, cheap and we can change up the game easily when they get bored. It’s a perfect thing to do in the a black out or storm and in the light of a flashlight.
Here are a few games that are great to play with cards for kids as young as 3.
4) Slap Jack. Pass out the cards to everyone and then you have to slap the jacks, the person that does it get the pile. We like to do a round that we slap jacks. Then we throw in jacks and queens. The next round, all face cards. Then next round, face cards and doubles. You can even slap “sandwich” ones. For example, 3-4-3 is a sandwich.
4) War
5) Go Fish
6) Old Maid
7) 9 Hole (Golf)– Each player places 9 cards face down in three rows and three columns. You flip over any three cards and leave them. The object of the game is to turn all the cards face up and get the lowest score. For every turn you pick up a card, either from the pile or discard pile. You can either take that card and replace one of your 9 cards or you can discard it. Once one player turns over all their cards, the game is over. Here is how the cards are scored: A=1, J,Q,10=10 K=0, Joker=-2, and the rest are the same as their number. If you get three in a row, you cancel out the row to zero points. 1 deck per 2 people.
8) Lucky Unders– Using two decks of cards, deal everyone 4 cards face down and then 4 cards face up. Then deal everyone 5 cards and put the rest of the cards in a pile. Everyone can swap 2 of their cards in their hand and 2 of the cards face up in front of them (the idea is to put high cards or the wild cards there). The first player puts down their lowest card. If they have more than 1 of the same number, they can put all of them down. Then you pick up the same amount of cards that you played (you should always have at least 5 cards in your hand). The next player has to play a card that is the same number or higher, not lower. If they don’t have a card higher, they have to take the whole discard pile. There are some “wild” cards that can be played any time. A 10 wipes out the discard pile (you take the whole pile and place it out of the game). A 2 resets the discard pile and it allows you play any card, for example you play a 2 and then you can play your lowest card. Aces are high and all the other cards are normal. You continue to play and pick up cards from the pile until the draw pile is gone. Once all of your cards in your hand have been played, you play with the 8 cards that in front of you (you can only play those cards when you have no cards in your hands). Once you play all 4 of the face up cards, you play the face down ones. You can’t look and you just have to play them. First person to play all their cards win.
Put everything into a box and now it’s ready for when I need it. We are going to be prepared and ready to have a fun evening in the dark.
What would you put into your black out box? Whatever you put in there, make sure you have the extra Duracell batteries.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.