When the weather is warm, it’s a good time to take your kids outside to play instead of sitting inside and watching television or playing video games. If your children aren’t always excited about going outside to play, there are a few games that are easy to set up and that require minimal pieces of equipment. Most games can be designed with items that you have at home including dish detergent, water, and water balloons. Here are a few games to consider that are fun for all ages to play.
Water balloons
You’ve probably filled water balloons and tossed them back and forth with someone else or even thrown them at someone as a fun way to cool off after a long day. You can change the game a bit by putting a small amount of dish soap on everyone’s hands before they pick up water balloons. The soap will make it a bit harder to throw the balloons, and when more balloons are popped, it can create a fun soapy mess outside.
Bowling
Set up a few empty containers that are the same size in your yard to represent pins in a bowling alley. You can divide into teams or see who can knock down the most pins in a fun family competition. Any kind of ball can be used to knock down the pins as long as it’s strong enough to knock them over.
Going batty
Get a few pool noodles in different colors and several water balloons. Use two laundry baskets as the goals. Divide everyone into teams to see how many water balloons each team can knock into the baskets by using the noodles. Even though it might sound like this would be an easy task, it can be difficult because of the similar textures of the balloons and the noodles.
Tossing rings
Instead of tossing small rings over pins, you can turn this classic game into one that makes humans act as the pins. You’ll use several pool rings that are large enough to go over each person who plays. After dividing into teams, one person is designated as the cone while everyone else tries to see how many rings they can get over the cone.
Painting pictures
If you want to simply relax with your children outside, then put a blanket on the ground so that you can lie down and look at the clouds. Each person describes the scene that they see, painting the image when you get back inside so that you won’t forget the fun that you had together.
