Congratulations to Wendy. Winner of the Elefun & Friends games.
Rain, rain, rain that describes our weather for the past week. I’m so glad that our kids have been too busy playing to complain. The two games that Hasbro’s Elefun & Friends and BlogSpark sent to our family have been a huge hit and provided hours of laughs and fun. Their timing was impeccable. What can be better on a rainy day to pull out a special game? Our kids love these active, noisy games and I enjoy watching and listening to the fun and craziness.
Hang out till the end of this post for an opportunity to win BOTH of these fun games from Elefun & Friends.
The kids couldn’t wait to play Giraffalaff Limbo
it had us all laughing from the very beginning. This is not a limbo game for adults (unless you’re super flexible), our 5′ 8″ 13 year old decided to sit it out, but the other children ages 1-11 had a blast. The children spin to see how they will navigate under the bar, classic limbo, crab walk, crawl, bending frontwards, etc. Then start the music and the game begins. When a child knocks the bar off the music stops and the giraffe gives a hysterical laugh and the game ends in gales of giggles.
Our children played Giraffalaff Limbo with some of their friends
, 13 children altogether including a 1 year old and two 3 year olds. The game kept the children completely entertained for nearly an hour.
We liked this game because all ages can “play” and feel included. The little ones would run or crawl under the bar while everyone clapped and cheered them on. The bigger children get competitive while the smaller ones have a bit of an advantage because of their size.
My one complaint about this game is that the legs snap into the base as a “one time assembly” which means that although you can take everything else apart and put it all back into the box, those legs are in the bases permanently, never to go back into the box. This makes the game a bit of a nuisance to store.
Scatterpillar Scramble
moving and the music is playing, not as easy as it looks, trust me.
This game is simple enough that our 4 and 3 year olds are is able to play independently, although with the marbles, I do need to be sure that the baby isn’t around and that it all gets put away. I enjoy having a variety of quick, simply preschool games that I am able to play with the little ones in a spare moment or two and this game fits the bill.
Scatterpillar Scramble is another winner in our home, even Mark and I enjoy racing the children and each other. The children love that they are occasionally able to beat us (only when I’m having an off day of course).
Like the games? From now until October 31 you may download a printable coupon for $4 off any Elefun & Friends game. The coupon is valid until December 31.
Wouldn’t your children love to receive these games for Christmas? Elefun & Friends is generously giving one Raising Olives reader BOTH of these games (a retail value of $58).
To enter:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me some of your favorite rainy day activities.
Extra entries:
- Tweet about this giveaway including @RaisingOlives and a link back to this post.
- Blog about this giveaway.
- Please leave a separate comment for each additional entry.
Comments will close on Wednesday, October 21 at midnight.
Hasbro’s Elefun & Friends and My BlogSpark sent these games to our family free of charge to enable me to write this review. All opinions expressed are my own and I am not otherwise reimbursed for any reviews here on Raising Olives.
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It’s been rainy around here too. We also enjoy games. We like Cooking Cookies and Uno a lot. If I need something for the kids to do without me, playdough and moon sand are nice for a rainy day. These games from Elefun & Friends look like a lot of fun, we would love to win them!
I love to build forts, play twister, read, clear all the furniture away and have a picnic.
On rainy days we love to curl up and watch old movies, build with duplos or lincoln logs, do puzzels or, if the weather allows, my kids love to go play in the rain. Here in MI that doesn’t happen too often though.
We love to build forts/princess castles/pirate ships/hideout’s….really whatever fancies the childrens imagination at the moment…..with blankets/sheets ect.
Rainy day, hmmm. We don’t get much rain where we are, so we don’t have many opportunities for rainy day activities. In fact, on this trip through Arkansas and now in Indiana, my kids have seen more rain in 5 days than their whole previous lives.
Indoor activities we enjoy are reading, baking cookies and hot cocoa (I’m thinking snow days), watching movies together, watching food network challenges.
Most of our games are either for little kids or big kids. I play Scrabble with my two oldest and my older kids enjoy Connect4 and Battleship. I would love to have a game for a wide range of ages. This sounds like lots of fun!
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Another game that is fun for all ages is Family Fun Cranium. Everyone enjoys that one even though the littles aren’t very good at it they enjoy trying to guess, and running around to find things. Since it’s played in teams it works.
My kids are all old enough now that a rainy day often means everyone curling up near the wood-stove in the living room with books. Sometimes I read, sometimes I quilt, but I always spend some time looking around the room at all those heads bent over their books, and thanking the Lord.
We love to bake chocolate chip cookies, curl up with our blankets and pillows on the floor and watch movies, and play indoor hide-and-seek.These look like fun games! (Especially for a rainy day
When it’t raining here I love to pull out the playdough! Some of my kids can play forever with that stuff so long as I give them the cookie cutters too!
We like to cuddle up under some quilts, leave the lights off all day and have a movie marathon snuggled together.
oh the limbo game looks awesome. I may have to get that for jr. youth! We read books a lot. Or we play the Wii as a family and Uno Flash! We love Uno Flash to play with our adult friends not our children…lol
Oh, we love active games like these! On a rainy day we love to pop popcorn, watch a movie, bake something yummy, and then take half to share with family or friends.
Well, we have had a LOT of rainy days for about 8 weeks. I hope the rain clears up your way. We are headed up there in a week!!
On rainy days we read (ok, we read on non-rainy days as well), watch old home videos or other movies, or play games. Our newest game purchase is Scrabble Apple. Based on Scrabble, but without a board and no crossword setup. Fun! Especially when I win!!!
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Oh Anita, if you are really going to be close contact me. It would be fun to meet.
My favorite rainy day activities are reading and playdoh. However, we are big monopoly and scrabble fans so we love to play those as well.
Thank you.
we LOVE a good rainy day! just a few of the things we do…put up a tent and pretend we’re camping in a rain forest, have a pajama/movie/popcorn party, have a read-in, make and decorate cards & letters for friends and family, if the day is warm (summer) the kids put on their bathing suits and go outside to dance in the rain
the limbo game looks like great fun…i appreciate your thoughts on it, as i have a variety of ages not quite the same spread as yours…and now i know they can all play it…except the newborn of course! thanks! i’ll be tweeting and blogging about that game…and hope to find it on a shelf and buy it soon!
Gen
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
*sigh* I miss having a newborn.
On a rainy day, some of our favorite activities are getting the family together and playing board games. It’s good quality family time and many of the games also help our son learn to count. It’s great! We could definitely use some new games!
haha, i forgot to tell you my rainy day ideas…my girls love to draw, so they tend to hold up in the dining room and create masterpieces…which i pick from and put in frames above my french doors! they love to play games…uno is a huge favorite…and candy land and cutes and ladders, which the younger girls can play.
My favorite rainy day activity is to snuggle under blankets reading our favorite stories while everyone sips on hot cocoa with extra marshmallows.
Blessings,
lisa in jax
One of the kids favorite rainy day activities is to make and play with playdough. It is an activity that does kill a lot of time, but makes a huge mess…
Our favorite rainy day activities usually include printing off coloring pages from the internet and letting the crayons out of the box. We sometimes practice the kids alphabet, play superheros or dance crazily to our favorite music. Anything to keep our kids entertained so we don’t go insane ;o)
My children are just discovering the fun of games. Their game repertoire consists of Old Maid and UNO. I’m sure this winter we will be adding to that and discovering how fun indoor games can be on rainy days.
how fun! My kids love to play dance party, or build forts on rainy days, these games would be so much fun!
We love board games here, too! We have a large collection of both classic ones (Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Backgammon, Chess) as well as more contemporary ones (Blokus, Upwords, Rummikub, Chronicles of Narnia). These look like fun ones to add to our collection!
We also rent DVDs from the library or watch our own. We have most of the Veggie Tales videos, the complete collection of Little House on the Prairie DVDs and more. This week has been especially rainy and we checked out some of the HBO/Devine Entertainment Composers series DVDs and a PBS special titled Liberty! because we are studying the American Revolution right now in our history studies.
Autumn and winter are also a great time for baking–cookies, brownies, quick breads, etc!
Thanks for letting me know about this give-a-way! We, too are dealing with all the rain and trying to find ways to keep the kids occupied inside. Hope we win this. They would make great Christmas gifts.
Unfortunately my kids spend WAY too much time watching TV, so it would be great to have some new games to play!!!
These look like great games.
It has been rainy here for a long time now.
We do a lot of different things. Sometimes we cuddle up and watch a movie together and other times we play games. Two of our favorite games are Pass The Pigs and chickenfeet. Hmm I notice a farm theme. LOL
I like to keep those odd, big gifts that extended family give us put away in the garage. Then when we have a week of rainy or cold weather I can put something out that the kids haven’t seen in a while. My mom gave us an inflatable ball pit a few years ago and we ended up with a Rose Petal Cottage from somewhere. These things take up way too much room to have out all the time, but when I pull them out the kids are so excited and play with them for hours.
My girls are just getting old enough to enjoy games like Guess Who and Hi Ho Cherry-O. So we are just beginning to build our game collection. These two look really fun!
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I like the idea of keeping some big things back to bring out when it rains.
Those games look like so much fun. Now that we’re in the desert, we rarely have rain, so unless there is lightning, you’ll find all the kids outside playing in the rain. lol!
These look fun! I’m afraid that when we have rainy days, we do school (especially on cold ones). It is the best time to get a lot done. Of course, my kid’s favorite warm rainy day activity is twirling in the rain and puddle stomping. *Ü*
Rainy days are great days to do CRAFTS in our house! Enjoying your website so much!
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Thank you!
My favorite rainy day activity is to make hot tea and read, my boys like it as well.
We like building puzzles and reading lots of books.
We like to play Uno or do a “Pack It All In”. http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2008/06/pack-it-all-in.html
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Why am I having to approve a comment from you? Did you change emails or something?
Smockity Frocks Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
My msn email was threatening to shut down unless we paid, so I set up a yahoo email, but msn never shut down, so now I can’t remember which one I leave where!
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
So long as you’re not leaving me your spam email account.
Most of days here in Germany are rainy! We spend the really stormy days in PJs & finger paints and play dough are saved for extra soggy days!
We have a play slide in the boys room, so they can slide even if we can’t make it out to the park.
hi there, you have such a wonderful and helpful blog. I am reading the Five peppers to my children and they are loving it. thanks for sharing all that you do with your children. on rainy days, we watch videos, play inside, dance. My children love music and dancing, so we do a lot of that. They are also into dinosaurs so we pretend to be dinosaurs a lot.
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Thanks Tereza. We just finished read “Five Little Peppers” love that book!
I tweeted!
We love games and these look like hours of fun!
We have a tunnel that we pull out, on rainy days and during some evenings. My 4yo and 1yo love tunnel time! We also build blanket forts in the living room. The limbo game looks like so much fun. If we don’t win I am putting it on my son’s wishlist for Christmas:)
What a fun giveaway! We love to sit by the window for a while and just watch the rain come down – or go outside and play in the puddles! Then, dry off and sit on the couch with a good book!
We love to get our play silks (that we were inspired to make from your website!) on rainy days.
Raising Olives Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Yeah for homemade playsilks!
twittered it!
A long time favorite activity at our house has been to build forts from couch cushions, tables, and sheets.
Hello! We would love to be entered into this giveaway. There are so many things we like to do during rainy days: first of all, watch the rain from the big living room window, my kids all LOVE to draw, so they will just pull out stacks of paper and crayons or markers and draw, draw, draw! We love to curl up on my king sized bed and read or watch a movie together. Making tents is huge in our house–my teenager enjoys making them and littles hang out in there. They will bring legos, books, dolls, action figures–you name it– in there and get some good play going! I also put the three middle girls (who are all close in age) into our big master bathtub and sit in there and read or tidy while they play in the bubbles.
The funny thing about my list is, is that these aren’t just some things I keep as backup for rainy days–we usually do every single one of these things when the rain continues all day long!
Thanks for the giveaway!
We like to watch movies, read, drink hot chocolate, and we also like playing games.
I just tweeted:)
On rainy days we love to play campout! We also love to bake and warm up the house.
One of our favorite rainy day activities is to pull out my 3-year-olds train track sets. I think I enjoy playing with them as much as he does! These games sound like they would be perfect for our family. Thanks for the chance to win!
On COLD rainy days, we love fresh cookies from the oven. On warm rainy days, my kids love to be outside in the midst of it. Unfortunately, here in this part of Hawaii, rainy days of any type are few and far between.
On rainy days, my two and three year old boys like to polish up on their catechism and Scripture memory work. Don’t all children? In reality, we do a little extra wrestling and reading books. We also have picnics in the living room!
We love to bake, make soup and maybe watch a movie, or play games when it is rainy and in Oregon it does rain.
We have a closet full of games, but none are ever (really) whole family friendly…we usually end up having to do teams of one older and one younger or make up roles for the youngers.
One rainy days, we usually end up cleaning out said game closet
so that when we have an evening we can FIND the pieces for the games. Oh, and sleeping late. (yay, for rainy days!)
Our favorite rainy day activity is making tents out of chairs, tables, beds, blankets, cushions, and just about every other household item. Occassionally my hubby will actually set up THE tent inside the house. Aren’t Daddies amazing!
We love rainy days – they usually involve lots of read-outloud time, hot chocolate, a fire in the fireplace & games.
Rainy days are awesome! We love to bake here and do crafts. Fun time is had!
oooh they look like so much fun!
We love to create art on rainy days! (Although the cleanup is less desirable!)
Reading in front of the woodstove….
Thank you for this great give-away! I must find out how you manage to get such wonderful loot for your blog.
On rainy days, the boys like to read, play board games, and color. I like to blog.
main entry: my 5 year old grandson and I love to play old maid/and stringing beads to make key chains.
sewitupjulie@gmail.com
my tweet and i follow you thanks
itsallnew2me win 2 great games for kids from Elefun & Friends at http://raisingolives.com
sewitupjulie@gmail.com
On a rainy day I pull out the Crayola Window Crayons and let the kids doodle until they can doodle no more. SOmetimes I put up an indoor obstacle course with tunnels to go through, blankets to crawl under, and paper bags to hop in. And if we are feeling very adventurous we will put on our rain slickers and rain boots and jump in the puddles.
We like big forts with lots of blankets and jumping in puddles!
What a fabulous giveaway! Our favorite rainy day activity is to snuggle on the couch with a good book or a Veggie Tales video. We also love to do art.
Wow – those look like fun! And I love your reviews because our families are so similar…
We like to run down our long hallways, or pull the children on blankets down the long hallways. Or we sit and read longer than usual. These games look like a great idea, because my children’s muscles get really itchy for running when they can’t get outside.
I tweeted, too!
We like to watch movies, bake and play games.
WE’re TV junkies…so on a rainy day, we’ll watch a movie. We’re watching season one of Little House on the Prairie right now. The kids are loving it!
Last Sunday, after church, it rained at our house. We lit a fire, pulled out the sleeper in our sofa and all 5 of us snuggled on the bed. We pulled the God of Wonders DVD out of our Sunday Box and drank hot chocolate while we watched the movie. Eventually, we all dozed off in front of the cozy fire. What a great day that was.
We love to put unpopped popcorn in 9×13 pan and let the kids play in the popcorn. They gather up all the toys they can and drive, fill, pour, empty, and bake for hours! Love it!
We love to play games together, read or just hang out. My kids love to ask me questions of my childhood and rainy days seem to be their favorite times to ask.
On rainy days we snuggle, bake/cook, watch movies! We usually do games at night and always looking for fun new games!
We’ve been building forts in the living room these last couple of rainy days.
One of my favorite rainy day activities is art. My daughter loves to draw, paint, color…anything artistic. That’s usually what we spend our rainy days doing. recently I have been teaching her to sew. She is doing great, she sold some bags over the Christmas holidays last year…
WOW! These look like awesome games. My kids will love them. On rainy days we love to read books, and bring out special “rainy day” toys. These include playdough, and paint, and big quilts to make forts.
What better way to have fun on rainy days then to jump in rain puddles!
My son LOVES puddles!
Side note: We just got our Before Five In A Row curriculum in the mail on Thursday. Started reading the books and like it already! Thanks for the suggestion!
some of our fave rainy day projects are making clay pots, painting and playing games
We like to bake on rainy days and watch a good ‘clean’ movie. With the little one around that means watching the movie while playing on the floor with her!
We are always on the lookout for new games.
Thank you for this post!
I just posted it on my blog too!!
http://www.collinsfamilyreviews.blogspot.co,
We like to play things like tic tac toe and bake a cake on those rainy days. Also reading is good and for the boys and daddy some good ole wrestling. Sometimes the girls get in on it too lol. We would love to win one of these games!
I also blogged about your giveaway.
http://theballardsblog.blogspot.com/
On rainy days we like to do crafts. I have 3 two year olds and a 1 month old so things tend to get a little messy. We do things like make Ooblek, play dough, bake drop cookies. We like to paint and draw, yesterday we did Halloween paper crafts, with gluing and cutting that help the triplets with their sensory seeking. We let them try out different textures, like oatmeal, sand, jello, pudding…We have just discovered how much fun the “Hokey Pokie” is with a bunch of toddlers!
Raising Olives Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Wow triplets, congratulations on getting through those hard first few years. It should be easier now, right?
Cooking with the kids, read a fav. book, write cards, dance party USA ok..just in the living room with the blinds shut! Thanks for Blog!
We like to play outside on rainy days! We grab our ponchos, go for a nature walk, slip and slide on the grass, then come in for hot cocoa and oatmeal cookies.Standing under the rainspouts is especially enjoyable!
lots of reading and board games. on an occasional rainy day my boys talk me into a rummy tournament.
I was going to leave a comment even before I saw that there could be a winner OF the games! Yay! That makes it even better! I was going to comment and say that I love when people post games/toys that are a “good purchase”… I like to go buy a toy that I know people actually like…I try and post things like that too…. so thanks! If I don’t “win”… maybe I can go try and buy them… Rainy day activity… hmmmm..lets see… television probably isn’t very creative, huh…
Well… we often make cards for people at our church, and decorate them….., we watch old videos (that’s always a hit), play playdough…. and even though I haven’t done this in a while…. my brother and I used to play “beach” all the time when we were little.. that was more of a “winter day” activity… but I LOVED it.. my mom would actually let us open an umbrella in the house… and we would prop it up like we were under an umbrella on the beach, and we’d get our bathing suits on… and water wings… lol.. and get a “special snack”… that was really fun 
OK…. there’s my final answer 
Also, I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, but have never commented..but I really enjoy your ideas and posts about homeschooling.. and when you commented on MY blog the other day… I called my mom.. and I said..”MOM! Guess who commented on my blog?! The Raising Olives lady!!”…. we were both excited 
lol… you’re a celebrity ya know 
Raising Olives Reply:
October 19th, 2009 at 4:37 am
I’m thankful that you enjoy my homeschooling posts. I’m trying to get more written but keep running short on time, but don’t worry I have a lot more to say.
“Raising Olives lady” lol. That is too funny. Don’t say “celebrity” though, it makes me a bit nervous.
On rainy days we usually build forts, read books we haven’t read, and bake homemade bread. Just fun stuff that usually gets pushed to the back of the list in the hectic lives we live. My kids are 8 and 5 and they would love those games!
Rainy days are just like any other day around here – school at home as usual and any errands that need to be run and appointments don’t stop just ’cause of a little rain.
We would love these games and they would be a great way to incorporate some of the skills my daughter is working on in OT into some games. We love making therapy more fun and seem less like work.
Our rainy day activities usually involve me wanting to pull my hair out. lol We’ve got 4 people, almost 5, in about 900 sq ft so it gets a little cramped. We have a couple acres of land and that’s where we spend most of our time….except for rainy days. My son loves to play a kid version of Bingo on rainy days. I’d love some new game ideas because the one thing I hate is having them in the house watching movies, basically doing nothing with their energy!
I’m so glad I found your blog!
Good Morning:) I always love your site & giveaways! Lets see, for rainy days, I really love reading with the kids lying around and a treat of some sort (now, my one child loves to cook, so I am so lazy & still get to eat cookies!)Please enter us in the giveaway, they certainly would make a fun Christmas present. Bless you, Heather
My daughter likes to read and watch old movies on rainy days.
These look like great fun! My girls would really enjoy them.
We like to make cards on rainy days and send to our friends and family since we recently moved and have no family local
water play in the sink
On rainy days, we like to work on puzzles, or play games (the actual Elefun game is on the Christmas wish list) and movies/popcorn is always fun too!
We love cuddling up with our favorite books!
Our favorite rainy day activities – if it’s warm enough the girls love to run around with their faces up to the skies enjoying the rain in their faces. No TV here so no movies or TV watching here. We love to play games, read while enjoying popcorn are a couple of things. Oh, the girls love to mix up brownies all by themselves and have me put them in the oven – and then of course enjoy the finished product. These games look fun! Thank you!
Reading a good book with my hubby!
On rainy days we usually read books on the couch together, or whatever I can think of to keep two active boys quiet. They really need their outside time to get rid of extra energy! I’m sure that they would love these games!
We love to bake and watch movies. My daughter will also pull out a huge pile of books, and we read them all with her!
Curling up with my kiddos and a stack of books is a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. Forts are another one, I think I could just go on and on though.
I love to read to the kids – we read extra when it is rainy outside! Blessings – Kelly
Our family loves to cuddle on the couch, watch movies and eat popcorn…Our favorite family boardgame is either Apples to Apples, Apples to Apples Jr. or UNO…some of the Apples to Apples game is inappropriate so we just take those cards out of the stack.
My kiddos love to play dress-up and make up dances/plays and then perform in our living room…one year for Christmas I bought a tote full of used costumes from a yard sale & to this day, thats the girl’s favorite gift ever!!
I love your blog and love to read about homeschooling! We live in Tennessee, too, just an hour South of Knoxville.~DIANA
Raising Olives Reply:
October 21st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Thank you Diana. Where south of Knoxville are you? My husband used to have that territory and was in Athens, TN about 4 times a week. The midwife who delivered our last baby also lives in Athens.
Diana Reply:
October 21st, 2009 at 5:29 pm
We live in Cleveland…I have lived here my whole life. I can’t wait to read your review on the Workboxes. Your blog is an inspiration. I only homeschool 1 right now with 2 littles and 1 older that is in 7th grade(public school). I get overwhelmed because I have a VERY strong-willed 3 year old that doesn’t sit long and gets bored easily? Any suggestions other than lacing cards,sitting him in a highchair with a toy, puzzles, legos?? He likes me to do puzzles and stuff like that together. I can’t seem to find anything to keep his attention longer than 5 minutes.
Raising Olives Reply:
October 21st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Thanks Diana. I have several suggestions for you, do you mind if I put them together into a post in the next week or two?
I don’t have kids myself, but I do take care of my God daughter during the week. On rainy days, there are toys that I take out just for rainy days. She is 2 years old, so I bring out a little ball pit for her. We also cuddle on the couch and read books, work on letters, numbers, and colors.
That would be wonderful! I can’t wait to read the post. Have a great rest of the week!
We like to curl up and watch a movie. *GASP* I know, but it’s so cozy and I love cuddling!