Bowling With Fruit Preschool Game

By Charlene Haukom

The Bowling With Fruit Preschool Game is a deceptively simple Indoor Preschool Game. It’s easy to set up and easy to play, yet it’s full of educational and crafting possibilities. First have fun crafting the cups – make monsters, penguins, or simple glitter polka-dots. Then have fun bowling while learning preschool math, preschool physics, and even preschool nutrition!

What You Will Need

6 Paper, Plastic, or Styrofoam Cups
Round Fruit

How to Play

1. Line up the cups as you would bowling pins: 3 cups in the back row, 2 cups in the middle row and 1 cup in the front row. The cups should form a triangle.

2. Choose a round fruit to use as a bowling ball, such as an orange, apple, lemon, or melon.

3. Play as few or as many rounds as you like! If several preschoolers are playing, the preschooler who knocks down the most pins wins the game.

Make Bowling With Fruit More Educational

Turn this Indoor Preschool Game into an Educational Preschool Game! Believe it or not, this simple preschool game can be educational in a variety of ways.

Preschool Math: If you play more than one round, keep score as you would in a traditional bowling game. If your preschooler knocks 2 cups down the first time and 1 cup the second time, how many total cups were knocked down? How many cups are left standing (in other words, 6 cups – 3 cups = 3 cups)? It’s a built in preschool math lesson!

Preschool Physics: Bowling With Fruit provides many opportunities to teach preschool physics. Study the shape of the fruit you are using – how does it impact the roll? The speed? The number of cups it can knock down? For example, if your preschooler rolls an apple with the same amount of strength as an orange, the orange would probably roll a little faster since it’s a sphere. The bumps on the bottom of the apple and the irregular shape would slow it down. Or try rolling a lemon lengthwise – what happens? What if your preschooler rolls a grape? They’re smooth and round like oranges, but they’re small. Can grapes knock over plastic cups? Probably not. On the other hand, what would a honeydew melon do?

Preschool Nutrition: What a fun way to teach preschoolers about the benefits of fruit! What preschooler wouldn’t want to eat something that doubles as a bowling ball? Just have a few extra handy since the actual bowling balls may get a bit bruised. Use this opportunity to share nutritional information such as the food pyramid, vitamins associated with each fruit, does the fruit grow on a tree or a vine, etc.

Make Bowling With Fruit More Crafty

Have fun crafting with your preschooler before playing Bowling With Fruit. Keep it simple with crayons, paint, and glitter, or go crazy with pipe cleaners, pom poms, and plastic eyes! Challenge your preschoolers to come up with crazy monsters, goofy penguins, or mystical glitter shapes! Depending on the type of fruit you use, you may want to make extra cups. Honeydew bowling balls, for instance, could potentially flatten a cup.

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