Anyone for Molkky?

Recently we talked about screen free week where the idea was to get your family away from screens and back to living.

What better way to celebrate a life without screens than getting back into nature?

Playing family games is a great way to do that and we were sent just the thing to entice us outside!“Molkky” is a Finnish throwing game which is a lot of fun, is great for stress release and helps your kids with maths too! You get one wooden throwing pin aka the “Molkky” and 12 wooden pins which are numbereed 1-12.

The pins are arranged in a tight group in an upright position and, standing 10-13 feet away, each person has a go at knocking over the pins by throwing the Molkky at them.

Pins have to be lying flat on the ground for them to count and you add up the numbers on the pins you have knocked which gives you your score. Then the pins are stood back up wherever they fell – this means the pins eventually get spaced out around the garden (shown below), ready for the next person to have a go.

The first one to reach exactly 50 points wins the game. If you score MORE than 50 you are penalised and your score goes back to 25. This means it’s a game of strategy too.[amazon-product align=”right” small=”1″] B000OY5OMG[/amazon-product]

What I like about this game is you can play with the rules to make it age appropriate. Tots might just be allowed to score anything they hit whereas older children can play by all the rules which includes being out of the game if you completely miss the pins 3 times!

It’s a fantstic way to learn as you play. Little Miss green does not enjoy maths one bit but she was happy to add up the scores and compete 😉

I also love the ecological benefits of this game too. The entire game is made from FSC wood, so it’s sustainable, durable and won’t harm the landfill after use. In fact I can see this becoming a firm family favourite from generation to generation.

The only downside was that our garden lawn is meadow grass and has a very uneven surface. Consequently it was pretty difficult to convince the pins to remain standing. I can imagine with some younger children this could be a source of enormous frustration. Would it work on concrete? Well yes it would, but would the wooden pins be happy being thrown onto a hard surface I wonder?

I’ve added some of our photos here, but there is little point reinventing the wheel. Check out Wendy’s fab You Tube video above for a real insight on how to play and have a lot of fun!