Check out this fun family activity you can enjoy while social distancing together. You already have everything you need and everyone is a winner!
ed. note: Chris is back as he continues to share some of his own tips and ideas for those of you looking for things to stay busy and use your time wisely while social distancing and working from home.
I came up with the concept for this game a few days ago and planned it all out the other night. Just now, I decided to come up with the name for it: Knotted Scarves. I think that’ll work. I feel like there may be an opportunity for a pun in there, but I’ll stick to Knotted Scarves. Maybe it’s already out there somewhere and it already has a name. Doesn’t matter; this is it! Unless you don’t use scarves. Hmmm. Anyway, check out our latest fun family activity while social distancing.
Fun Family Activity 2 – Knotted Scarves
(Find our first fun family activity while social distancing here)
The key to a good family activity right now is being able to use what you already have in the house. This one requires nothing more than a few average length scarves. Or anything resembling average lengths scarves that you might have around the house for some reason. Things like chunky yarn, ratchet scraps, or large ribbon. We went with scarves because apparently, big scarves are a big thing right now. You’ll need one scarf per person.
Look how happy we are, together! And we’re going to stay that way because there are only winners and no losers in our game. We’re all going to work together to solve the puzzle. It starts with the scarves all knotted up and twisted together in a messy, jumbled bundle of chaos.
Next, everyone gathers around and picks up two random ends, one in each hand:
What a mess. Let’s fix that. Making one pass at a time, going over the top only, we’re going to work together to untangle this mess and free the scarves!
Levels of Difficulty
It’s harder than it looks. Sometimes the right move isn’t obvious. There are ways to adjust the level of difficulty, too. First we had open discussion. We solved it by talking about our strategy, the next move and why it makes sense. To make it a little harder, the second time there was no talking. We communicated through wide-eyed looks, nods and directional shoulder dips. That was a lot of fun. The hardest, especially with young kids, is no communication at all. Just make your move if you think you have the best one. If two people get on different strategic paths you can end up with an even bigger mess than you started with. See if you can all move in the same direction without the luxury of communication.
Success! The scarves are free.
Like I said, it’s actually harder than it looks but tons of fun. It sure kept us busy for awhile. We were too busy having fun I forgot to get a photo of Courtenay giving one of those wide-eyed looks with a dramatic shoulder nudge I mentioned above. That’s too bad but I don’t think she would have let it make the cut anyway.
Try this one out and let us know how it went.
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.