MYOT - Make Your Own Toys for your kids! Let's make a Concentration/Memory game from a tissue box!!

Two weeks ago I had a great time making a fishing set for my little boy and he has been crazy fishing all day ever since ... 

MYOT - Make Your Own Toys for your kids! This time it's the Fishing Set!

This time we tried to make a different type of game and we don't need anything from stores... Just your used tissue box... yeah, TRASH if you like. Very environmental right!? :-)  The game is very famous and traditional and popular... it is called Concentration game or Memory game or even Memory Match game. Quite simple and yet it is fun and educational since your kid will need to learn to stay concentrated and memorize card positions. Well, sometimes even we, the adults, need to polish your brain's memory function ... be warned - you might lose it to a 3 years old!! :-) And, it is competitive ... aka fun. Good for spending time (making once and playing forever) with your little ones!!

Let's see what we need for this game:an  used and empty tissue box, a scissors, a pen and a marker pen, a building block for drawing square shape. That's it!! The total amount of money needed is $0. 

 

Now, trace 24 square shapes on that flattened box using the building block. You can count the number of squares on the photo. It is indeed 24. That means we will create 12 pairs of matching cards. Also, notice that since there are already some patterns on the box ... they can be utilized to save some later drawing for you! You will see it soon.

 

Now. You can google some patterns on line or create your own. I am less creative so I pic-googled it. I used the keyword "icon" to help locating good copy sources. And then use the marker pen to draw 12 pairs of patterns. Please, when I say pair, it means they need to look reasonably alike. I am not asking you to be Picasso but at least you must be a decent enough copycat... :-)  This is critical or your kid might not recognize them as a pair.  

 

Viola! Now here is what we created: 12 pairs. Including hearts, bicycles, clocks, circles, stars, spirals, envelops, phones, clouds, moons, flowers and suns. Notice that we used original tissue box patterns to be circles and stars without drawing ourselves (almost forget... also the flowers, only I re-draw it with market pen). :-) 

 

Also, you should make sure that there cards look reasonably identical when they are flipped over (box selection and cutting are two factors to notice). This is fundamental for playing the game. Mine looked okay, right!? 

 

Okay! Job done! You are now ready to play! Maybe most of you know how to play this game. But I will just quote from a website to show you the game rules: 

THE RULES FOR PLAYING "MEMORY"

Mix up the cards.
Lay them in rows, face down.
Turn over any two cards.
If the two cards match, keep them.
If they don't match, turn them back over.
Remember what was on each card and where it was.
Watch and remember during the other player's turn.
The game is over when all the cards have been matched.
The player with the most matches wins.

I put some photos here to help you realize there rules here. The fat little hands belong to my son. 

 

 

 

The following three show how you can memorize the positions of bicycles and then successfully flip the correct two and keep them to your winning pairs. 

 

 

 

This time, we had fun, we spent hours doing and playing it and most important of all ... I spent no money ... We helped saving the planet !! :-)

Have fun MYOT for your kids! See you next time. I still have many toy experience to share in the future!