DIY Outdoor Ball Run: Building with Loose Parts

In our backyard, we keep a variety of loose parts, including paving stones and scrap wood, for building all sorts of things.  We have made elaborate balance beam obstacle course, ramps for cars, a giant rainbow, and roads for cars, just to name a few.  The latest creation, however, was inspired by marble runs.  We have some colorful bocce balls that, unfortunately, were left in the cold and cracked (they were water filled bocce balls).  Regardless, the boys love to play with them.  One particular day, they were rolling the bocce balls down some wood pieces.  Soon my husband and the boys were building a giant outdoor ball run.

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To build a DIY outdoor ball run, we used:

• Bocce balls
• Scrap wood with grooves - ours were from a deck railing kit as I described here
• Paving stones
• Sidewalk chalk (optional)

It took a little bit of tinkering to get the bocce balls to run down the course (and stay on) properly.  The paving stones were used to prop up the scrap wood, as well as make little walls to keep the balls on course.  Like I said, a lot of tinkering was involved.  The final design of the outdoor ball run looked like this:

And I promise my grass is a lot greener now than in the pictures.  That's what happens when you take pictures in early spring and kind of forget to blog about them...ahem...Anyway, J requested a start line and a finish line, so my husband kindly obliged.

Then once the scrap wood was also adequately decorated with sidewalk chalk, it was time to let the good times roll!  Yes, I'm so witty, aren't I?  

Lots of turn taking was involved and eventually J and K had specified who could roll which color of bocce balls.

Naturally, there were lots of other shenanigans that went on during the course of the ball run play, including lining up all the balls to create a bocce ball train down the ball run course.  Wow, how many times can I use the word ball in one sentence...

Be sure to check out these other loose parts play ideas:

DIY Outdoor Roads

DIY Outdoor Car Ramps

Coloring a Giant Chalk Rainbow