Make a giant Jenga game from 2×4’s, seriously guys its so easy and one of the funnest games I’ve played outside in a long time.
I love the indoor small version of Jenga anyway so this giant DIY was going on my summer to do list. I did have to talk my hubby into cutting all the wood for me, but he much rather cut wood than weed the garden so I took the garden and he got out his saw.
Jenga was created by Leslie Scott, the co-founder of Oxford Games Ltd, based on a game that she played with her family in the early 1970s using children’s wood building blocks the family purchased from a sawmill in Takoradi, Ghana. Now I found that fascinating that its not an ancient African game, but really if you think about it we have been building with blocks from the beginning of time. So the game Jenga was born in 1982 and here is how you make your own blown up version of this game!
What you need for you giant Jenga
4 2x4x16 this will make 72 you really don’t need that many
a miter saw or circlur saw
sand paper
wood wax
Here is how you make your own giant Jenga
1.cut your 2×4 into 11 inch pieces making sure all the pieces are the same size so you don’t get a wonky tower! you can get 69 pieces if your careful although you only nee 54 or less depending on how tall you want your tower.
2.sand the edges, like my other wood projects I have my cute hubby set up a make shift sanding station. We clamp a belt sander to a table and turn it on, viola I just have to stand there and hold the boards against the running sand paper! My hubby brilliant I know.
3.The board might be to rough to slide well under that amount of pressure, so I waxed each top and bottom piece so that they would slide easly out. I used Minwax you can find it on Amazon HEREor I’m sure any home improvement store might have it as well. (get Clear or natural)
This game was by far the easiest one to make but the most heavy and will require a large Rubbermaid to haul it around in. So worth it for the years of outdoor fun!
The Rules of Jenga
A classic Jenga game consists of 54 , finished hard wood blocks. To set up the game, Stack all of the blocks in levels of three placed next to each other along their long sides and at a right angle to the previous level. In other words each story goes the opposite way until your out of blocks. Then one person at a time will remove one block, we play that you can use both hands becuase the blocks are so big but you can only touch the one piece. if you try to push back a piece that you moved other than your block you are disqualified. (I know we are hard core)!! You keep building up stories until it topples over and that person has to be the one to set it up for round two. Ha Ha.
If you want to see Brook Walker from Studio 5 Playing Jenga during our segment then just click HERE
P.S. watch your kiddies little toes these are 2×4’s people!! play with your shoes on and watch those little’s around the game. I’m dying to bring it to the garden/park wedding I’m creating in a few weeks so new photos might be added soon. Do i dare do that will all the little kids? don’t want any competitive fighting going on.