List of Fun Games to Play Outdoors

A list of outdoor games ideas suitable for all ages and events, including parties, family reunion games and fun outdoor games for teenagers. Not only does this article provide ideas for some outdoors games and activities, it also gives the instructions on how to play them.

Two people hold a long stick, which players attempt to go under one by one by bending backwards. If successful, they proceed to the next round. Each round, the stick goes closer to the ground, making it more challenging. The last one to successfully make it under wins. Play this one on grass so that if somebody falls on their back it won't hurt *too* much!

Give each person a normal sized piece of paper, which they must make a paper plane with. If you want, you can give them instructions on how to make it, but it's more fun just seeing what people come up with. Then everyone stands behind a line, and throws their plane one at a time. The person whose plane goes the furthest wins!

One person covers their eyes while everybody else hides. They then must look for all the other players.

Just a regular footrace. Starting point, end point. Running. You know what to do.

Items needed: different colours of paint, bucket, water guns
Place some paint in the bucket, and dilute it with some water to make it runnier. Fill the water guns with it, and give one to each player. Each player should have their own colour of paint (or if playing with a bigger group, you can make teams). The game has two winners: the person who has squirted the most paint of their colour on all the other competitors, and the person whose shirt has the least paint on it.
For a better game, make everyone wear a white top so the paint is more visible.

Items needed: water, three buckets for each team of two.
Divide into teams of two, and give every player a bucket. One member of each team stands near a small inflatable swimming pool or other source of water, and the other stands around two metres (6.5 feet) away from them. The person standing near the pool must fill their bucket with water, and then, without moving any closer to their team mate and without dropping their bucket, try to get the water into their team mate's bucket... essentially, they must toss the water. When the team member on the receiving end chooses to, they can run to a third bucket, around twenty metres away and empty the water from their own bucket into the third bucket. They can choose to do this as many times as they want, and should do it occasionally so their bucket doesn't get too heavy for them, but doing it a lot will take up time! The team to fill up their third bucket first wins.

If you've got the equipment, why not play some regular ball games? Backyard cricket, soccer, netball etc. Or... if you're feeling creative, why not make up your own game? Try to incorporate different things into your game, making it unique- for example:

• why not use two different types of ball (tennis ball and basketball, maybe?)
  
• if you have a nice big tree, why not use it? As some sort of base? Or if there's a big fork in it, maybe it could be some sort of goal.
• If you wanted, you could make it that people need to yell out a silly word at some stage in the game, like when they score a goal, or catch the ball, or something else... kind of like bingo.

Leave a comment below! What are some of your favorite games to play outdoors?