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I don't even remember where I learned the silly game, "Don't Eat Pete", but I have played it as a down time game with kids when I taught school and they always loved it. About 4 years ago, I taught it to my grandchildren. We all played it as a family and had so much fun laughing and especially watching the little ones get a big kick out of it. Here is how you play:
- Start with a game board that has 9-12 squares on it. The squares can have pictures, or numbers or letters. (The numbers and letters are good ones for reinforcing those skills in your little ones.)
- Use a little type of food, like goldfish, M & Ms (our favorite), skittles, cereal pieces, whatever you have and are sure your age of children won't likely choke on. For our purposes, I will say cereal as I explain the game.
- Place one piece of cereal on each square.
- Have one person leave the room and hide their eyes.
- Everyone else decides which square is "Pete".
- The person who left returns to the room and starts to eat the cereal off of the squares quickly, trying to eat them before they get to "Pete".
- When they pick up the piece on Pete, everyone shouts, "Don't Eat Pete!" Then the person must stop eating. (Sometimes the person picks Pete first and doesn't get anything and sometimes they make it through the entire board.)
- When everyone shouts, "Don't Eat Pete", that always makes the person jump and everyone laughs hysterically.
- Replace the cereal and give someone else a turn to try to eat Pete
With that in mind, you will now understand why when I was in the store looking at the Easter Candy and I saw Peeps, that this variation of the game came to my mind. Why not an Easter version of Don't Eat Pete? And thus, Don't Eat Peep was born!
I made this 9 square board. When I printed mine, I discovered that I was running out of colored ink, so yours will have yellow on it and look even cuter. I numbered the bunnies from 1 to 9 so that when you play, you just pick the number that you want to be Pete. Then, look! I found these bunny shaped marshmallows at Walmart!
They have them on Amazon, but they are much less expensive at Walmart.
You just lay them out on your game board like this. Aren't these little bunnies adorable? And fresh out of the bag, they are soft and fluffy!
I can hardly wait for my grandkids to get here so that we can play together! Click on the button so that you can get your own game board. I copied mine on card stock, but plain white paper works just fine.
Singing Time Version
I have written posts before about things I do with the young children at church as I teach them singing. We do a lot of activities to make it fun. "Don't Eat Pete" is a game that I have converted to use with my kids for Singing Time.
- I draw a big game board on card stock. You can put pictures on it, or numbers or musical notes. For this week, I will probably use the "Don't Eat Peep" version this Sunday by cutting out larger versions of the rabbit. I lay the board on a table in the front middle of the room.
- I assign each number to a song that we will be practicing. If there is a song that I want to practice a little bit extra, I will give it 2 numbers.
- I know what the food allergies of my kids are, so I choose a little snack accordingly.
- We send one child out of the room while the rest of the room whispers and chooses a number.
- The child comes back in the room and starts to eat the snack. The rest of the children watch (some stand to see) and shout "Don't Eat Pete" (or Peep this week) and everyone cracks up. Then, I tell them which song that number is for and we sing it. I tell them that I am watching and listening for good singers in order to choose my next player. That really motivates them to sing well.
- At the end of Primary, I will give anyone who didn't get a turn a little handful of the snack if they want it.
Birthday/Kid's Parties!
If you have extra kids or grandkids coming for Easter, "Don't Eat Peep" is great for any size crowd. If you want to play "Don't Eat Pete", at other times of the year, for birthdays or other parties for kids, I found these game boards available on Etsy! The site is called Paper Tagged. Just click the link or picture to order! In this game, everyone gets to eat treats and you could keep track of who got to eat the most and the least to give out ultimate prizes if you would like.
And that's how it works! I hope you can use these ideas and enjoy the free printable board for some Easter fun!
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