Good Bowling Party Games

Classic

• What could be more fun for a kid than rolling a ball and knocking things over? It's active, it's fun and you get to wear colorful rental shoes. Bowling is a classic American game, giving players two chances to knock down 10 pins in each of 10 frames. Many bowling alleys now have electronic scoring so you don't even need to learn how to mark your score sheet. In addition to standard bowling, try injecting a little fun in the form of alternate games or activities.

Goofy Bowling

• Create a task or odd style of bowling in each frame. For example, in frame 1 try bowling with your left eye closed. In frame 2, bowl underhanded. In frame 3, roll the ball using your other hand. Try bowling on one foot, with your eyes closed, backwards or roll the ball through the birthday boy or girl's legs. It's fun and gives every kid a chance to laugh and compete at something they have no expectation of being good at.

Bingo Bowl

• Create 5 x 5 square bingo cards and assign different bowling scores to each square: strike, spare, 1-10, split, and so on. Give each bowler a chance to roll a different score and make bingo. Just make sure you have prizes for each game.

Rock and Bowl

• Many bowling alleys host a rock and bowl time with contemporary music played as you bowl. Some also place a blue pin in each lane. If you bowl a strike when the blue pin comes up as the head pin, you win a prize.

Prizes

• Everybody loves prizes. Hand out prizes for things like highest score, lowest score, biggest difference between scores or most marks (strikes and spares). Conduct stunts like the slowest roll down the lane or highest number of gutter balls. Depending on the age of the kids and the size of the party, two or three games will be plenty of bowling. Make sure you have three or four players per lane to keep the party moving.

After Bowling

• Get a few rolls of quarters. Almost every bowling alley has some kind of arcade guaranteed to keep your guests busy for hours.