Outdoor Games for Children Pre K- 8Yr Olds

A game my kids always had fun with was this: two differant teams have some kind of container that one at a time will carry their container; eye dropper, spoon, nothing breakable, and run down to the end of their row where a bucket of water is. They fill up their container and run back to where another "empty" bucket is waiting for them to empty whatever water they still are carrying into it. Then they pass their container onto the next in line. Continue like this until a certain time limit is up or they have reached a certain level on their teams bucket. Also have you thought of a scavenger hunt. That is always fun. More work for you but fun for the kids. You can even team up with the older and younger kids. One older, one younger each on a team. Arts or crafts is also another fun thing my kids always enjoyed. Hope these suggestions help.

When I was a kid, our church had a huge peanut hunt for all the kids. Some were strewn across the grass and in really obvious places for the little kids, and some were hidden a little better, under benches and in trees, etc. for the older kids (to be more challenging). It was so much fun, and something that we looked forward to doing every year. They still do the peanut hunts out at the church every summer. Its something that was passed on from generation to generation, and its good, clean fun. Plus....when everyone has found all the peanuts...YOU CAN EAT THEM! :)

Check out this months issue of family fun magazine. They had a bunch of outdoor games listed alog with ways to turn your backyard into a water park. I didn't get to read the issue I just had a chance to look it over briefly.

Try a WET T-SHIRT game! Yes, these are youngsters, so get a bunch of similar-sized T shirts, buckets of water to soak them. Then have them THROW them into (heavy)laundry baskets! Older kids have to use a further distance to throw. Winners get small prizes - penny candy etc. If the kids are already wet from water balloons, then throwing a wet T-shirt will not get them a great deal wetter. You could have them throw into buckets, but those upset easily. I did buckets with 15-20 year old guys, and it was a LOT harder than they thought!!

Have fun!

I couple of easy games that are funny and would not require you to drag a lot of stuff are the Amoeba game where kids are in two or more teams. You tie a rope of hose or something like that around a group of 5 or 10 kids and make them work together to go up and back some distance.

Another is Dizzy Lizzy where you turn kids around 5 times and then have them run a distance go around a cone and come back.

a third could be the fireman game where you have a couple of teams and a trash can at each end and several small sandbox buckets. The kids stand in a line and have to get all of the water from one trash can to the other. The one at the one end with the full can puts water in the bucket and they pass full ones down one end and emptys back so that they can fill up the empty can on the other end.

1. Sack race, OF COURSE.
2. Fill buckets w/ water and use HUGE sponges. The first member soaks the sponge. Each team takes the sponge OVER/UNDER/OVER/UNDER until you are at the end. People can squeeze it as much or little as they want.
3. Fill WASHTUBS with overcooked spagetti and thinned out spagetti sauce. Pick a word - it could be the name of your church or worship or something like that. Use magnetic letters. Mix in lots of magnetic letters and numbers into the spagetti. Each team goes and sits with their BACK to the tub. They pull out a letter or number and run back to the line. Have a bucket for putting all the letters in. The first team to find all the letters in the word wins. Throw numbers and letters that aren't used on the ground. It makes it easier, less time and goo to only put used letters in the bucket.
4. Teams sit in a line with an full bucket of water and cup at one end and an empty bucket at the other. First person fills the cup and passed it to the end & dumps into the empty bucket. First one to fill it wins. Obviously, kids can dump water on other kids or work on winning.
5. One chosen person - could even be the minister or pastor- for each team. That person sits several feet ahead of the line, facing it with a bucket -sand bucket works best- on their head. They'll have to hold it. The team has a full bucket of water in front of them w/ a large cup/glass. First team to fill the bucket to overflow onto the "chosen one" is the winner. Again, teams will chose to douse the individual as they are filling the bucket OR wait until it overflows onto that person. I got to be the chosen one in this game before AND my team won. The water was COLD, too!!!

Javlin throw using a pool noodle. Hopefully, there won't be much wind. This works. We did this at Field Day.

Hope this helps!

We just had our family reunion and we did a duck pond. Oriental Trading has different ducks to choose from or they even have matching number ducks. Get a cheap blow up pool and there you go. We got a little toys and they seem to love it. We did also purchase ring toss, bean bag game and potato sacks but they just wanted to play with the ducks and choose what they would get. Hope you enjoy as much as we did.

Pinatas are always fun! Three legged races or a sack race.

Hi B.,

Tug of war? Can get a little rough, so consider the kids you are working with.

A variation on what Ramona P said--

Bug in a Jug: For each team, get one plastic gallon milk/juice jug, one one-cup measuring cup, a plastic bug ("Creepy Crawler" type) and a bucket of water to dip water out of. Put bucket of water by front of team line, put jug 50 ft away, with plastic bug inside. First person from each team fills the cup with water, runs/walks to the empty milk jug and dumps water into jug. Runs back to team and gives cup to next person, who repeats. Eventually the bug will rise to top of jug (maybe a good idea to test whether the bugs float before you bring them to the game site!) First team who can pull their bug out of their jug wins. No, it is not allowed to dump your jug to get your bug!!!

You can vary the size of dipping container (one cup, half cup, pint, tablespoon-lol--LONG game there!), distance to jug, and the means by which kids get themselves to jug--e.g., walk, run, hop, 3-legged crawl, skip etc.

If being wet is not a problem, you can play a pass-the-sponge game. For each team you need two buckets, one full of water, one empty, and a sponge. Put full bucket in front of team line, empty bucket in back. First person puts sponge in water til it is wet, then passes it over his/her head to next person, who passes it over his/her head, etc trying not to squeeze too much out. Last person squeezes sponge into empty bucket, runs to front of line (everybody scoots back to fit), and dips sponge in til it's wet, and passes back to next person etc. Object of game is to get the most water in back bucket. You can play until water in front bucket is gone, or once through the line of having everyone be the "starter", or 5 minutes, or..... and then compare water level in the buckets.

You could also have them pass the sponge under their chin to next person--they get really wet that way!

If you don't want them to get wet, pass an orange or rubber ball or softball or kooshball (all same for each team) under their chins. First team to get it from front of line to back is winner.

Make paper airplanes and try to fly them into a circle laid out on grass.

You could do some brain games too for those who can read--boggle, for instance. Or have each team form their bodies to make letters and make a word (Think"YMCA" by the Village People here). Or have a bag/box full of slips of paper with nouns on them, the funnier the better (e.g. elephant, ferris wheel, sauerkraut, mouse, etc). Pull four out at random and have each team make up a poem (or story) using them.

Or get a book of Mad-libs and do those just for fun.

HAve fun!

K. Z.