Newsball

 

Today's Snack: You can't eat newsballs. But you can sure eat melon balls! Cut a cantaloupe in half. Scoop out the seeds. Take a melon baller, a tool you can buy at a kitchen store or the kitchen aisle at the grocery or discount store. Scoop out a circle of balls from the top of the melon half.

Then take a knife (have adult supervision!!!) and cut that whole circular slice off, so that you have a fresh, new surface for more melon balls. Scoop out another set of balls from that surface, and cut that slice off, too.

Keep going 'til you can't get any more out of that melon half. Cut up the remaining fragments of cantaloupe and eat separately with a fruit salad for dinner, for example. But take a toothpick and spear each melon ball, and enjoy!

A fun juice to try with melon balls is peach nectar. It comes in a small can, usually found on the top shelf of the juice aisle in the grocery store.

 

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Supplies:

 

A week's worth of old newspapers

 

Duct tape

 

Painter's tape or masking tape

 

A trash can or laundry basket

 

 

Here's a wacky, indoor baseball game that's the most fun with lots of kids, although with just two, you can still have a . . . excuse the expression . . . ball.

 

First, take a section of newspaper and roll it up tight and diagonally so that it is shaped like a bat. Tape it tightly with duct tape.

 

You will need one bat for every "defender."

 

Now take individual newspaper pages, scrunch each one up into a tight ball, and wrap tightly with one piece of duct tape. You will need as many balls as you would like! Fifty or more is nice.

 

For your "playing field," you will need a pretty large open space. A school gym or cafeteria, or a room in your house with the least furniture (and nothing breakable!) is best. You can play this game inside or outside. If you happen to have a place outside, go for it.

 

Put a wastebasket or laundry basket as the "goal" in the center of the space. Using the painter's tape or masking tape, create a circle of tape that's about four feet in diameter - that means four feet across. Keep the "goal" inside that inner circle.

 

Now go about four feet outside of that inner circle, and tape a bigger circle, all the way around.

 

Now go a distance away from that outer circle, say, 10 feet away, and if you have room, tape one more giant circle . . . or, if there isn't room for that, tape two lines across from each other, each about 10 feet from the outer circle.

 

Here's how the game works:

 

Divide up into "offense" and "defense." Those on "offense" take the "balls" and stand behind the outer circle (or behind the two lines). Their feet cannot go over the line that forms that outer circle. They are going to try to throw the newsballs into the goal.

 

But first they will have to get past the "defense." Those people must remain on their bottoms - that's right, on their seats - on the floor, in the inner circle. They cannot go inside the circle that the goal is inside, but they can go anywhere else, as long as they remain on their rear ends.

 

They will each have a newspaper "bat" that they can use to bat down the balls that the "offense" will try to throw.

 

Set a time limit for each "inning," say, two minutes. If you don't have a "referee" with a watch with a second hand or a stopwatch to keep track of the time, you can use a kitchen clock.

 

Keep score of how many newsballs each side gets into the goal. Then put the newsballs back outside the outer circle, and switch sides.

 

Whoever "scores" the most wins. And the other team is responsible for pulling up all the painter's tape and throwing it away, and picking up the balls and bats and putting them away for next time!