There are a lot of homemade Halloween bowling games, but the goal of this one isn’t just to have fun knocking down a few ghosts ( although my son sure has had a blast!) it’s also about building fine motor skills, counting and making something together as siblings.
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- Gather your materials. You will need some empty water bottles, sticky back black foam, scissors, a few packages of cotton balls and a pumpkin ball. Buy this ball here.
- Start by filling your bottles with cotton balls. My two-year-old and I worked together filling her bottle.
This was a challenge for her and her fine motor skills. My son had no problem and happily filled his first bottle in a snap.
- Make it a challenge for fast finishers. I decided to give my son a challenge and asked him to estimate how many cotton balls it takes to fill a bottle, then count to see the difference.
- While your kids fill the bottles cut some eyes from the foam. This sticky back foam is great for crafts when you don’t want to wait for the glue to dry.
- When all the bottles are filled peel the backing off the eyes ( more fine motor work)
and pop them on the bottles. 
- Can you tell which one my daughter made?
- Now it’s time to bowl. My daughter got frustrated pretty quickly, but I am going to try again today when her brother is at school. I don’t think it was the activity that frustrated her so much as not being able to do it just like her much more coordinated older brother. He had a blast.
On his own, he decided to try out different ways to arrange the ghosts. In a horizontal line, diagonal one, a bunch and then in this X. All I know is he was working on gross motor skills while also experimenting with the most basic of a physics lesson. 
Halloween Books
AlphaOops: H Is for Halloween
Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters
Letters Numbers and Books oh my says
great minds think a like I just posted our pumpkin bowling using a real pie pumpkin and orange colored water (in water bottles) to go with Tiger Tales 5 Little Pumpkins 🙂
http://lettersnumbersandbooksohmy.blogspot.com/2012/09/5-little-pumpkins-and-halloween-bowling.html
Cute Ghost Pins! 🙂 and great books we love them!
[email protected] says
Love this as I have 5 yr old twin boys who struggle with fine motor AND love to knock things down. :). I looks like one my 2yo daughter will love too although she kicks butt in fine motor she needs gross motor work. Yep, I have 3 former preemies all with different mild delays.
Where did you find the ball?
Andrea says
FUN! I’ve spent the last couple days looking at your site and writing down activities to do with my kids (4 and almost 2). We have a long list! Where did you get the cute ball?
admin says
I got it at Safeway of all places. I looked for a name on it but there was nothing. I did find this similar one though
Baden Rubber 8.5-Inch Playground Ball
JDaniel4's Mom says
What fun! I love the three eyed ghost.
admin says
He did have 4 but my son negotiated with her to give one up so all his could have 2 each.
Stephanie KierysSmkierys says
Tried this activity today with my almost 22 month old. She loved it! We improvised and just drew the faces on with a marker. I love your blog! We have tried a ton of activities! My daughter still likes to play with her valentine’s sensory box. Thank you for all the great ideas!
Erin says
I’m so glad I came by to read the post on this. I am so quick to make materials for my special ed. pre-school class on my own, but after reading your post, I had a duh! moment! What an excellent point to make about the fine motor practice of having the kiddos fill the bottles themselves! We will be making them together and then using them to bowl! I love it!
admin says
I catch myself making things for both my kids too , I am glad I remembered for this post!
Carolyn Wilhelm says
this is perfect, easy for children to create, you offered so many educational aspects of these activities, love the physics and the book recommendation, thanks so much–pinned, and linked from my recent fall learning post, thanks