15+ Fascinating Bowling Activities that No One Knows

Bowling 🎳 is a quintessential American pastime. I have some great memories of being at the bowling alley with my friends as a teenager and a young adult. 

But I had no idea that bowling also has several benefits, especially for young children 🧒, and has inspired me to create a variety of learning activities for them. 

This social activity can be easily replicated from the comfort of your house and can be used as a tool to improve your child’s coordination, spatial awareness, and even patience. 

It is a great tool to teach your kids 👪 the value of practice in any sport and even help them develop important skills like teamwork and sportsmanship. 

Interesting bowling activities for kids

The list of activities mentioned below is suitable for indoor and outdoor. Many of the activities were designed specifically for younger children and incorporated a quick lesson in letter and number recognition, along with a game of bowling 🎳. 

Hope you and your children enjoy participating in these activities. 

Water Bottle Bowling 

Water bottle bowling is a fun, low-cost bowling activity for children that can be played from the comfort of their homes. 

This is a wonderful way to teach your preschoolers the rules of bowling 🎳 whilst simultaneously helping them learn the alphabet. This game is best played with a group of people. 

What you need- 10 Used and old plastic water bottles, foam balls, and alphabet stickers. 

Steps

• Stick ten random alphabet stickers 🔤 on the plastic water bottles and assemble them like bowling pins in your backyard. 
• Ask your child to roll the foam ball from a distance. If they are unable to strike all of the water bottles, then in order to get another chance, they must make a word out of the letters available to them. 

Pro Tip- Start the game by allowing 2-letter words and then make the game more challenging by increasing the number of letters. 

Number Bowling Game 

This indoor number bowling 🎳 game is perfect for a rainy day. It not only alleviates your child’s boredom but can also be used to improve their counting skills and even help them learn how to add and subtract. 

What you need- Old or used bottles, plastic jugs, empty milk cartons, number stickers, and a foam ball. 

Steps

• To play this game, you need ten bottles. Paste the number stickers from 1 to 10 on the bottles and assemble them in your hallway like bowling pins. 
• Start off by asking your child to say the numbers 🔢 on the bowling pins out loud. 
• Ask your child to carefully identify the numbers on the bowling pin they hit. 
• To get another chance, you can ask your child to add or subtract the numbers written on the bowling pins that are left standing. You can also ask them to add or subtract the bowling pins that they were successfully able to hit. 

Pro Tip- For my son, who is currently learning multiplication, I pasted a number sticker on the ball and asked him to multiply that number with each pin hit. 

Bowling Relay Race 

If you are organizing a birthday party for your child, then you should definitely consider this game, as it requires many players. 

Set up two bowling 🎳 lanes next to each other and divide the kids into two teams. Ask the children to stand at the end of the lane in a line. On the go, one player from each team will roll the ball to the other end and run 🏃behind it. 

They will then return the ball to their teammate, who will grab it and roll it down the lane again. The goal of this game is to see which team is the fastest. 

Sensory Bowling Activity 

Sensory bins are a great tool to engage your child’s senses in gameplay that desensitizes them to new sounds, textures, shapes, and smells. 

What you need- 10 empty plastic bottles, a foam ball ⚽, baby oil, flour, and pony beads. 

Steps

• In a plastic container, ask your child to put a cup and a half of flour and mix it with a cup of baby oil. 
• Let them play with the dough for a while before adding the pony beads to the mix. 
• Now, ask them to put this mixture equally in all of the ten bottles. Let them add and subtract until all of the bottles have the same quantity of mixture. Ask them to close the lid of the bottles tightly. 
• Assemble the bottles in the shape of bowling pins, and then ask your child to roll the ball to hit the pins.

Pro Tip- The pony beads are optional; if you don’t have them readily, then you can substitute them with something similar in shape or size or completely leave them out of the equation. 

Skittles Bowling 

I played this game with my kids after dinner, and it stimulated them mentally and physically. 

What you need- A packet of Skittles and a toy plastic bowling set. 

Steps 

• Set up the bowling set 🎳 in your backyard or even indoors in an empty hallway. 
• With your children, decide what action is associated with each skittle color. For instance, my kids decided upon the following- green means bowling with your non-dominant hand, yellow means bowling backward and from between your legs, and so on. 
• Ask your child to put their hand in a Skittles bag and pick a Skittle at random. Make sure that your child cannot see which color they are picking. 

Pro tip- Make sure to adjust the rules of the game in accordance with the aptitude of the children playing the game. 

Shout It Out 

Shout it Out is an incredibly fun bowling game for preschoolers and elementary school kids that utilizes their memory and is played for the express purpose of improving their reactivity. 

To play the game, set up the bowling pins 🎳 wherever it is convenient. Ask your child to roll the ball toward the pins. While the ball is traveling, ask them to name five animals, colors, shapes, movies, cereals, candy, ice cream flavors, and anything else that comes to your mind. 

With older kids, you can ask them to multiply or divide numbers, say the longest word that comes to their mind, or say the alphabet backward. 

Ministry of Silly Walks 

As a kid, I was a huge fan of Monty Python and loved making up funky new ways to walk 🚶 around my house. 

Have a good laugh with your kids by encouraging them to come up with new ways to walk before rolling or throwing their balls in different and silly ways. You’ll be surprised to learn how funny children can be with this activity. 

Tin Can Bowling Activity 

Help your child make their own customized bowling 🎳 set from used tin cans. 

What you need- 10 Used empty tin cans, metallic paint, and a paintbrush. 

• After washing and drying the empty tin cans, ask your child to remove their plastic wrappers. 
• Once the wrapper is removed, ask your child to paint over the tin cans in different colors. Let the first coat of paint dry. 
• Ask your child to decorate the tin can even further by drawing patterns, shapes, and even animals on the tin cans. 
• Let the paint dry completely. The bowling set is ready to be played with. 

Vertical Plastic Cups Bowling 

Your preschoolers and toddlers will be thrilled to play this engaging game of vertical plastic cup bowling. 

What you need- Solo cups and balls. 

• Ask your child 🧒to build the tallest structure they can build with the solo cups. 
• Once they are finished, ask them to destroy their creation by hitting the structure with a ball. Repeat the process until they are bored. 
• This exercise, while being extremely messy, can also teach your children the value of teamwork, along with the basics of designing and structure, as there are a number of different ways to build a stable structure with plastic cups. 

Even Or Odd Bowling Game 

This bowling 🎳 game is a wonderful after-dinner family game for adults and kids alike. 

• Label two bowls as odd and even and ask every participant to write four dares each. 
• The dares can include having to do push-ups and sit-ups, eat something under a time limit, perform a dance number, recite the alphabet backward, mime an action, sing a song, multiply or divide numbers, do celebrity impersonations, and more. 
• Divide these prompts into the two bowls and then proceed to play a game of bowling. 
• If the participants strike an even number of pins, then they must pick a dare from the even pile and vice-versa. 
• If the participant is unable to fulfill their task in the stipulated time, then they are out of the game. 

Bowling Jenga 

My kids had so much fun when we played a game of bowling 🎳 Jenga. 

What you need- Toy bowling pins and ball, a Jenga set, and a table. 

Steps

• This game can be played both indoors and outdoors. I prefer playing it in our backyard. 
• Ask your child to help you set up the bowling pins. 
• Place the Jenga set on the table next to the starting place from which you hope to bowl.
• To play the game, you must bowl the ball in turns and make a move in the Jenga game. Bowling a spare means that you miss your turn to move the Jenga piece. Whereas rolling a gutterball means that you have two turns. The aim of the game is to make the Jenga set as unstable for the other player as possible. 

Bowling Bingo 

My oldest son and my nieces, who are the same age, had a lot of fun playing this game while the younger children enjoyed it from the sidelines. 

What you need- A bowling card and a toy bowling set. 

Steps

• Make a bowling 🎳 card with different outcomes, like all of the numbers from one through nine, and other bowling outcomes like spare, gutter ball, and strike. 
• Hand each participant a bowling card. 
• The participants must take turns to roll the ball. After each turn, they have to mark off their bingo cards. The rest of the game follows the rules of an ordinary bowling 🎳 game. 

Bowling Obstacle Course 

Every summer, I ask my children to design an obstacle course. My oldest loves planning, and as he grows up, he has created really tough courses for him and his sister. 

This year, we decided that the final at the end of the obstacle course would be to throw a perfect strike. Every time the contestant misses a pin, they would have to do the course again and again. The fastest to complete the course wins. 

Marble Bowling 

Marble bowling 🎳 is a wonderful way to strengthen your child’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. 

What you need- 10 erasers and marbles. 

Steps

• Ask your child to place the ten erasers as bowling pins on a table. 
• Use the marbles to strike the eraser bowling pins 🎳. Play the game as usual. 

Lego Bowling Game 

My kids love playing with Legos and have accumulated an impressive collection of Lego sets. Did you know that playing with Legos improves your child’s fine motor skills, teaches them about structures, and promotes learning through hands-on play? 

To play a game of Lego bowling, ask your child to create ten bowling pins 🎳 from their existing set and use a marble or a smaller ball to bowl with. 

Fraction Bowling 

Bowling 🎳 is a wonderful way to teach your child fractions. 

What you need- A plastic toy bowling set. 

Steps 

• Make a worksheet using photo editing software or handwritten, in which you make two columns with three rows. In each box, make ten bowling pins. 
• Set up the bowling set 🎳 and ask your child to roll their ball. 
• After every turn, ask them to count how many bowling pins they were able to strike with their ball. 
• Then, ask them to use a pen, marker, or colored pencil to fill in the number of balls they were able to strike on the worksheet. Also, represent the same in fractions. 
• Repeat as many times as possible.  

Maths Bowling 

Maths bowling 🎳 is a great game for elementary school children, especially when they are learning multiplication, division, and brackets. 

• To play the game, on a worksheet, draw ten circles in the shape of an inverted pyramid and write the numbers 1 through 10 in them. 
• Now, give your child a 10-sided dice and ask them to roll it three times. Write these three numbers below the pyramid. 
• The kids must now utilize their understanding of mathematical operations like brackets, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to use the three available numbers in such a way that they can get the following answers- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. 
• The children can strike the number as they go. The child with the most correct answers wins. 

Benefits of Bowling For Children 

Bowling 🎳 is an incredibly fun activity, whether you are a child or an adult. Bowling is not only a competitive sport but also a social sport that keeps people physically and mentally stimulated. There are several benefits of bowling for children- 

Bowling is a social activity

Taking your children bowling from an early age can improve their communication skills as bowling 🎳 is a sport that is played in a group. As the kids wait for their turn, they’ll also learn to be patient.  

Strengthens fine and gross motor skills

Picking up the ball and aiming it at the bowling pins might seem easy, but it actually requires a lot of motor planning. It also teaches your child how to use their body to force an object in a particular direction. 

Builds Confidence

Successfully rolling the ball at the bowling pin 🎳 and knocking over all the pins will help build your child’s confidence and self-esteem.

It shows them that if they keep trying to improve their technique through practice, then they will be able to achieve success one day. 

Improves Problem-Solving Capabilities- 

Bowling employs your child’s problem-solving abilities as they must figure out the angle and speed at which they must roll the ball so that it hits all of the pins at the same time or the remaining pins. 

Conclusion 

With the help of these activities, I was subtly able to incorporate playtime with some learning. My youngest daughter really benefited from this experiment, and we had a good time learning to spell words with the help of bowling pins🎳. 

I urge other parents to give some of these activities a try, as they are great ways to bond with their children. Hopefully, your child really enjoys these activities. Let us know in the comments down below what modifications you made to fit your child’s sensibilities.