Good game for Bad Weather (a repost)

*I am reposting this now to get it posted in a bunch of the groups I've joined in the last year... it wasn't even posted in my groups, since I made them after I posted this the first time.*

It was a dark and stormy night. One babysitter and three young children listened to to the thunder crash and boom outside, the kids becoming more nervous with each strike.
The only thing keeping them from sheer panic was the movie their mother had left for them to watch on television. Everything was ok until we lost power.
Now what would we do?
Three little faces peered up at me in the darkness as my mind raced to come up with an activity that could be done in the dark and would take up their concentration. I lucked out that night... my brain actually worked for me, and I came up with a mind game.


We are building something. (That night, I chose the Eiffel Tower because one of the kids had a small model of it.) It is up to the players to come up with the materials.
The rules are as follows:

1) The material must be something of small or moderate size, no bigger than a microwave oven.

2) The material must not be anything normally used for building, such as bricks or lumber.

3) Each person must come up with something unique... players are not allowed to repeat each other's materials. For instance, if Johnny builds out of number two pencils, Chrissy cannot also build out of pencils.

To play the game, players take turns stating which materials they are using. We used a full statement: I am building the entire Eiffel Tower out of __________________. (fill in the blank) My little charges came up with some interesting stuff; hot wheels cars, action figures, footballs, barbie shoes, pancakes, lightning rods, etc. They rode out the worst half hour of the storm playing the game. By the time they were done, the wind and thunder had died down to a much less scary level. Soon after, the lights were back, and they finished their movie, then got ready and went to bed.

I now "take" that game on long car trips with my kids. My 9-year-old loves it, and even our girls, both in their teens, participate.
I think it would be an excellent distraction for kids stuck inside for recess on bad weather days, as well. It would give them a chance to be creative and think about things from a different perspective. For instance, how silly would it look to have the Eiffel Tower (or some other familiar structure, such as the White House) built out of Barbie shoes or pancakes? It would also keep the attention of most age groups for at least the normal length of a recess, helping to prevent some of the problems caused by the restlessness that usually results from children being stuck indoors when they are used to going outside.


So... how will you build the Eiffel Tower? As for me...
I'm going to build the entire Eiffel Tower out of Chewing Gum Wrappers.