Ideas for Outdoor Fun at Home

Four square has been the go-to outdoor game for us. Draw one large square (8-10 feet across) with chalk and divide it into four equal squares. Squares are numbered 1-4, and one player stands inside each square. Player 4 bounces and taps a playground ball into an opponent's square to start play. When the ball enters any player's square, he or she must tap the ball into another square. Any player who misses the ball, lets it bounce more than once, or sends it out of bounds must move to square 1, and all other players move up one square.

Hide and seek is one of the best childhood games for kindergartners or preschoolers to play with bigger siblings! The person who is "it" covers her eyes and counts while the other players hide. The seeker must find all of the other players, and the last one to be found becomes the new seeker. You can play variations where the seeker must tag the other players, or where there is a home base that the hiders need to reach to become safe.

Sharks and minnows is fun, and it gets played a lot at school. Players stand along a starting line, and must reach the finish line without being tagged by the shark. Any minnows who are tagged by the shark become sharks, too. Repeat racing across until all remaining minnows have been tagged. The winner is the last minnow to be tagged.

Capture the flag is a fun outdoor game for bigger groups, but a smaller group works as well - our family plays it with 4-6 players all the time! Divide the playing area into two territories and the players into two teams. Each team has a flag or other token which they hide or place somewhere on their territory. The goal is to find and capture the other team’s flag and bring it safely back into your territory. But beware! If you get tagged while in the other team’s territory, you go to “jail,” freeze, get sent back to your territory or whatever other consequence players decide ahead of time.

Keepy Uppy is an equally fun game to play in the pool as it is out of the pool! Just keep a beach ball (or two or three) up in the air as long as possible.

A ping pong ball hunt is a fun pool game for kids who like a little competition. Number as many ping pong balls as possible, starting with 1 and going up to as many as you have - 25 to 30 work well. Divide players into two teams, give each a container for collecting the balls, then toss the balls into the pool and have players collect as many of them as they can. Add up the numbers on the balls to see who wins! You can introduce a bunch of variations on this game for fun, like only allowing players to collect a single ball at a time, or assigning teams to collect only certain balls (like odds/evens).

Popsicle tag is the swimming pool game version of freeze tag. The player who is "it" tries to tag all the other players, who freeze in place with their hands in the air - like a popsicle! - whenever they are tagged. Players "unfreeze" other players by swimming under their legs.

Air charades is popular with my kids, especially when they're playing with younger kids and everyone has a different swimming ability. It's a spin on traditional charades, with players acting out an animal, dance move, pose or other easy clue for other players to guess. The challenge? You have to act out your entire clue in the second or two you are in the air as you jump into the pool!

We buy small Graham cracker crusts (in the tiny pan) and add chocolate chips or pieces of chocolate bars. Then top with small marshmallows. Perfect on a grill or oven!

S'mores nachos: lay out graham crackers on a skillet and top them with mini chocolate kisses and mini marshmallows. Toast and enjoy! Add more toppings if you want too (i.e., peanuts, coconut, m&ms)

Reese's peanut butter cup, marshmallow and graham crackers

Grasshopper S'more: made with traditional graham crackers and marshmallows - and Andes chocolate mints!

Set up a little frisbee golf course in the backyard and use a laundry basket as the target. The player with the fewest tosses to get their frisbee into the basket wins!

We recently discovered creeking from our park center super fun and free lots of activities too. I found it on the events tab on Facebook I’ve never done anything like it before but it was fun for my tot and myself .

The geocaching app is a huge hit with my kids! There is a free option, but the $6.99 option has more caches to find. My kids (7 and 9) have so much fun with this in our neighborhood and also parks and paths nearby!

A water balloon fight is a must every summer! The bunch-o-balloons water balloons have made the prep for this so much easier.

Measuring cups of different sizes and shapes create ceaseless fun pouring and dumping; dumping and pouring for hours.

Play Sink or Float. This simple toddler science experiment is a favorite at our house! Collect items that can safely get wet (utensils, plastic toys, fruit, rocks, etc.), then take turns placing them in the water table to see if they will sink or float.

Add plastic/foam letters or numbers to the water and have kids “fish” them with a toy fishing rod, large spoon or spatula. If they are ready, you can have them fish for particular letters or numbers to help reinforce alphabet/number recognition.

Frozen toys. Take small toys that will fit in an ice cube tray, fill it with water and freeze. Add these ice cube treasures to the water table for kids to uncover. They can use a spray bottle or dropper filled with water, dunk them or pour water all over them for the big reveal!