Before you recycle this week’s newspaper, stop right there and turn that newspaper into the perfect balls for your toddler! The light weight and soft texture means this activity is not only great for honing little ones’ throwing skills, but also that it won’t result in injuries or broken items around the house.

To start, I simply crumpled up a few pieces of newspaper for Veronika and set out the laundry bin as her goal. She trotted over and tossed them in, easy as pie!

Clearly we needed to up the ante. I made a line of masking tape a few steps from the basket and she had to make her shots from here. She was so good about lining her feet up on the blue!

And wouldn’t you know, this toddler can throw! Every ball went into the goal.

Big brother Travis had another idea to make the game even harder; he climbed right in the basket as a goalie!

Needless to say this soon had brother and sister alike in fits of giggles, tossing the balls back and forth, and much hilarity and fun ensued.

If you want the newspaper to stay in tighter balls, you can secure around each wad with a little bit of masking tape. That said, we liked the balls best when we simply smooshed the paper pieces as tight as we could in our hands, since the tape made them a little more dangerous for tossing at each other.

In sum, this is a a great way to get in throwing practice even when you can’t make it outside to the park.