Snowball-Throwing Contest

WHAT IT IS: A snowball-throwing contest featuring a large bull's-eye target created in the snow

WHAT YOU NEED: Food coloring, spray bottles, sticks with flags

We can toss snowballs at trees, telephone poles or our neighbors any old day. For a Snow Ball, we wanted a more sophisticated test of marksmanship. This colorful bull's-eye target did the trick, allowing us to keep score by recording where our snowballs landed. First we stomped out a flat circle in the snow, then drew rings with spray bottles filled with food coloring and water. Each section's point value was indicated by a numbered flag on a stick. We designated keen-eyed officials to keep track of the scores and decided to play until someone reached 100 points. The game was cut short, however, by an outbreak of snowball war.

TIP: Give each contestant a similar-size bucket for his or her premade snowballs so that everyone has the same number of shots.