No. 2 – HALA BALA
How to prepare it
Children are able to construct the game by themselves, only the very little children need the help of the parents or tutors. We create a kind of a basketball stand of two bottles by cutting the top of the first bottle and joining it to the second bottle with the help of a piece of the hose-pipe. Look at the photos and the drawing to help you. The bottom of the first bottle is joined to the top of the second bottle by the above mentioned hose-pipe, traditionally used in the garden, which is put on the bottle neck (look at no.1 in the drawing ). We cut the bottom of the stand, circa 5 – 10 centimetres above the shaped part, above the “legs” of the bottle (look at the no.2 in the drawing). The third bottle is cut in the same way and it´s bottom is inserted into the hole of the bottle, which was cut before (no.3 in the drawing). We cut the circular holes, circa 30 millimetres in diameter, to the standing bottle in the places, where the hollows were created by the shapes of the inserted bottle bottom (no.4 in the drawing). We cut the bottom of the fourth PET bottle, which has to be of the same size and in the same shape. We insert this shaped bottom into the stand (no.5) so it makes the bottom of the basketball stand put on the table (no.11 in the drawing). Before the insertion, we fill the bottle with the sand or gravel, or any other available material, to ensure its stability (no. 6).
How to run the game
The players throw the glass balls (in a circa 15 mm diameter) into the top of the stand from the distance of about 1 meter (according to the age of the children). When the player hits the hole of the bottle top, the balls fall through the hose-pipe out of the bottle through one of the five holes made in the bottle. The balls hit the little PET bottles (of about half litre size), which are put around the stand. We can use the cut bottles instead of the little bottles (no. 10 in the drawing). The player scores when he/she hits the top hole of the stand as well as for hitting each little bottle (or when the ball falls into the cut bottle used instead of the little bottle). Each little bottle, or the cut bottles, which are put around the stand have assigned numbers, so we can know the scores for the bottle that was hit. It is up to an agreement of the players which numbers they will use for the bottles.
The alternative game
We miss out the steps 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in the drawing of the original play. The bottom of the “basketball stand” is created by the only one bottle, with the shaped bottom part of the second bottle inside. We cut out the circle holes in the places of hollows created by the shaped bottle bottom so that the balls fall out of the bottle stand. The stand might be put on the basement of the table or of the floor and the game continues as it was explained in the original game – the glass balls or bullets are falling out of the bottle and hit the little plastic bottles arranged around the stand or fall into the cut bottle bottom.
Comment
The holes into the PET bottles can be made with the knife used for tapestry cutting or with the manicure scissors.
Pictures illustrating the description
© Rideg Ján – 2009