The other day my daughter played the game of Twister at her gym class (you know, the game where they pretend yoga is fun), so naturally, when she came home she wanted to go out and buy the game immediately. I wasn’t in the mood to rush out to the store right then, plus, I try to steer away from instant gratification. (I’m not always successful in sticking to that resolve… “Hey mom, can we go get some doughnuts?” “Sure! Doughnuts sound delicious!”) In any case, we did not buy Twister. My daughter was undeterred, she just went and made her own game of Twister.

She cut out circles from colored paper and taped them to the floor in our basement. We had an extra blank spinner from a make your own board game kit, but you make it on a sheet of paper and use a pen or something for a spinner. Or you could just have someone randomly call out appendages and colors. (“Right foot on yellow! Left hand on green!” Etc., etc.)

My son is so competitive that at one point he was almost crying because he was in so much pain, but he still wouldn’t concede. (We always let him win so he wouldn’t hurt himself.) All in all it was a lot of fun for about $14 less than the real thing. Another win for my children’s resourcefulness and ingenuity.