Sponge Ball Fight–Pinned it, Did it!

Welcome to our first Pinned it, Did it! post!!  Every Friday, we’ll bring you things we’ve tried after pinning them on Pinterest.  Sometimes they’ll be things we’ve pinned on our personal accounts, sometimes, ideas we’ve pinned on our Toys In The Dryer account.  Either way, we’ll let you know if the project or recipe was worth the effort and if our kids had fun doing them.

We start with a sponge ball fight:

When I saw this pin on Pinterest, I knew it was PERFECT for our neighborhood block party!  We’ve had water balloons in the past that left a huge mess to clean up in the morning plus parents worried their little ones would try to eat the small balloon parts left in the grass.  Thus, sponge balls were tried and were an exponential success!!  Both the little kids and the teens loved them!

Confession before I continue: I have no photos of the actual sponge ball fight because I got to the party at the very end of the fight (work ran a little late).  These photos were also taken after the fact because I forgot to take them when I, my neighbor, and her daughter were making them for the party.  (I actually had to take apart a few balls and put them back together for these photos!)

OK, you need:

• Basic sponges (3 per ball)
• Scissors
• Rubber bands or string
• A bucket
• Water
• Kids (or adults)

Stack 12 sponge sticks on top of each other in a 3 x 4 stack.  You can use all the same color sticks or mix it up to make fun colors.

Rubber band or tie the sponge sticks together in the middle.  The original pin used string to tie them together but we used rubber bands.  Our balls did start to fall apart after a while (mainly when the teens were throwing them hard) and we’re not sure if tying tighter string would have made a difference.  You should be fine with tight rubber bands if you are using the balls gently with younger kids.

Fluff the balls up by bending the sticks apart from each other.

Fill up a bucket of water, soak the sponges, and have some fun!  FYI: the sponges hold quite a lot of water so you can throw them 4-5 times before having to dunk them in the water again!

QUICK NOTE:  We tried a few sponges from the dollar store that had the scratch pad on one side (because it’s the only sponges our dollar store had).  Though they worked ok, and were not as scratchy as we thought they would be, they did not hold as much water and they got quite dirty after a while.  I definitely say to spend a little more money and go with the regular sponges!