The Basement Can Take It

Basement is the place where you mostly put unused stuffs. Have you ever thought of your basement as an activities room for your youngsters? Find out in this article the ways to transform your basement into amusement park for your youngsters.

We are not thinking now of an expensive amusement room nor a colorful rumpus room, but just plain basement. We are so used to thinking of the basement in terms of laundry and furnace that many of us have never even thought of it as a big, uncluttered place for youngsters to play on the days when for various reasons they can't go outside.

For the little tousled-heads that are always under foot on rainy or sub-zero days a sandbox of white sand in the pleasantest corner of the basement provides endless entertainment. The youngsters soon learn to keep the sand in its box and there is no more likelihood of sand being tracked upstairs than there is of its being tracked into the house from an outdoor sandbox.

All small fry love to swing. Rope swings swung low can be fastened to the heavy crossbeams of the basement ceiling .Children a bit older get a lot of fun from bean bags. A clever bean-bag board can be made from a board about two feet wide and two and one-half or three feet long. Holes must be cut in it for eyes, nose, and mouth. The openings for the eyes should be about seven inches long and five inches wide. The mouth should be about four inches long and ten inches wide. The base of the nose triangle should be about eight inches long. This board can be placed either against the wall or supported by a hinged prop.

If the children want to make a regular game of it and keep score, they stand in line ten to fifteen feet from the board. Each player has five bean bags, or five bags may be used by several players playing in turn. A bag thrown into the mouth counts five points, one into the nose ten points, and for each eye twenty points. The first player to get one hundred points is declared winner.

The basement floor makes an ideal roller skating rink. While the younger ones are perfectly happy skating the older ones crave a little more excitement and the smooth basement floor becomes a rink for "Roller-skate Polo." This game is a product of our boys' imagination, is fast and furious and is a vent for excess steam. Each player wields a croquet mallet but only one ball is used. A goal is set up at each end of the basement and the game is on. The boys choose sides and each team tries to get the ball into the opponent's goal. The team first making five goals is the winner.

Another original roller skating game is an "Obstacle Course." Tin cans salvaged from the rubbish box are set up at various distances and skaters maneuver through the openings between cans much as a skier maneuvers around trees on an open hillside. Tin cans and croquet balls are all the equipment needed for an indoor "Bowling Game." Ten tin cans are set up in ten-pin formation. One point is given for every tenpin knocked over and fifteen is scored if all the cans fall at one shot.

Your Basement can be an endless entertainment ground for youngsters. Choose those games which can be play in your basement.

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